News / National
Mugabe's current Cabinet rated worst ever by Daily News
26 Dec 2014 at 08:27hrs | Views
HARARE - As 2014 comes to an end, the Daily News has rated President Robert Mugabe's current Cabinet team - which is wracked by debilitating factional and succession wars that are devouring the ruling Zanu PF party - as the country's worst ever.
Apart from scandalously participating in the ugly infighting within Zanu PF, that resulted in the brutal and sometimes violent purging of many party stalwarts such as former vice president Joice Mujuru, Mugabe and the current Cabinet have failed dismally to build on the momentum gained during the days of the government of national unity and to arrest the country's ever deteriorating economic malaise.
A review conducted by the Daily News over the past two weeks returned an emphatic thumbs down for Mugabe and his Cabinet, with the review committee describing the team as "terribly mediocre" and "wholly underwhelming".
The committee pointed out the fact that the attention of the country's rulers had been devoted to either the "mudslinging" within
Zanu PF, or they were frantically trying to save their political careers ahead of the party's damp squib "elective" congress that was held in Harare earlier this month.
As one committee member pointed out, this meant that the country had been effectively "on auto pilot" since Mugabe's and Zanu PF's disputed victories in last year's national elections.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai even joked in his end of year address last week that Mugabe's Cabinet was packed with "enough deadwood" to build a 2014 version of Noah's Ark.
Such is the political and economic paralysis in the country that analysts say both local and international investors have adopted a fatal wait-and-see attitude — with Zanu PF's much-hyped economic blueprint, ZimAsset, seen as an empty political slogan and all-round dismal failure.
As a result, the analysts said, there had been more "sloganeering" and blaming of non-existent sanctions by politicians for the fact that Zimbabwe was once again "on the verge" of being a failed State.
Emanating from this, the Daily News rated Patrick Chinamasa, the man who holds the country's critical Finance portfolio, a miserable 1 (one) out of a rating of 10 as he continues to flap and flail hopelessly ineffectively against the economic hardships bedevilling the country and its citizens.
One politician cruelly said of Chinamasa that he couldn't even be trusted to "organise a piss-up in a brewery", while an analyst said he could not "even run a rural bottle store, let alone an economy on its knees like Zimbabwe's".
With schools in a sorry state and the country's once lauded education sector on its knees, Education minister Lazarus Dokora scored a fat 0 out of 10.
Apart from a dismal pass rate at the country's schools, Dokora has also been tinkering and experimenting dangerously with the critical sector.
From controversial proposals to ban sports at school during the week, to outlandish statements that bordered on insulting the poor, Dokora left many Zimbabweans livid with anger.
His recent and ill-advised decision to close schools early in Bulawayo and Harare, when children were sitting for end-of-year examinations to pave the way for the Zanu PF congress, shocked many.
And as he maintains that parents should be dragged to court for failure to pay school fees, Zimbabweans have pointed out to the obvious fact that he has failed to take into account the reality that many parents fail to pay fees not because they do not want to, but because they do not have the means because Zanu PF has destroyed the country and its once prosperous economy.
Tied with Dokora at ground level (zero) is the Sports minister Andrew Langa.
The under-fire minister controversially flew to Brazil to watch the Soccer World Cup in June when the country's national team, the Warriors, were nowhere near the Copa Cabana beaches of the South American country.
Analysts also point to the fact that sports in the country, just like the economy, is in intensive care, and the minister, apart from enjoying the costly Mercedes Benz and other luxuries associated with his lofty position, has been a dismal failure.
The minister came under a severe shellacking recently when he allocated $46 million for the little known African Union Sport Council Region Five Under-20 Youth Games, commonly known as the Zone Youth Games, which Zimbabwe hosted — yet he did not appear to give a hoot about the arts and all national sports.
Virtually all sports pundits felt this was wasted expenditure.
Health minister David Parirenyatwa, hamstrung by a lack of funding — with hospitals grossly understaffed, nurses struggling to get jobs and qualified doctors earning a paltry $283 a month — also scored zero.
The fact that the last time Parirenyatwa was minister of Health, that at least 4 000 people had needlessly died of cholera under his watch — did not help his rating.
But there was one predictable silver lining to the dark cloud engulfing the Cabinet ratings. Tourism and Hospitality minister Walter Mzembi continues to do well as was by far the best-rated politician — scoring 7 points out of 10.
Last year the indefatigable minister brought the world to Zimbabwe through the hugely successful United Nations World Tourism Organisation Assembly indaba, and he has this year commendably ignored Zanu PF's worthless factional politics, in large measure, to push through his tourism agenda.
Awed by the tourism awards bestowed on the country by the European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT), even Mugabe, who usually keeps his cards close to his chest, went into overdrive as he praised the hardworking and high-flying Mzembi — right in front of all of his Cabinet and senior government officials nogal!
This year, Zimbabwe was honoured as a major tourism destination and as the 2013 world's most preferred cultural destination after it successfully co-hosted the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly with Zambia.
Joseph Made, the Agriculture ministers scored zero as has become the norm over the years. Made, despite being the minister of Agriculture for 14 years, has failed dismally to revive the sector with his flawed agricultural mechanisation policies.
The minister suffered a further blow when the review team felt he was too arrogant and selfish when dealing with issues concerning the ministry.
Apart from scandalously participating in the ugly infighting within Zanu PF, that resulted in the brutal and sometimes violent purging of many party stalwarts such as former vice president Joice Mujuru, Mugabe and the current Cabinet have failed dismally to build on the momentum gained during the days of the government of national unity and to arrest the country's ever deteriorating economic malaise.
A review conducted by the Daily News over the past two weeks returned an emphatic thumbs down for Mugabe and his Cabinet, with the review committee describing the team as "terribly mediocre" and "wholly underwhelming".
The committee pointed out the fact that the attention of the country's rulers had been devoted to either the "mudslinging" within
Zanu PF, or they were frantically trying to save their political careers ahead of the party's damp squib "elective" congress that was held in Harare earlier this month.
As one committee member pointed out, this meant that the country had been effectively "on auto pilot" since Mugabe's and Zanu PF's disputed victories in last year's national elections.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai even joked in his end of year address last week that Mugabe's Cabinet was packed with "enough deadwood" to build a 2014 version of Noah's Ark.
Such is the political and economic paralysis in the country that analysts say both local and international investors have adopted a fatal wait-and-see attitude — with Zanu PF's much-hyped economic blueprint, ZimAsset, seen as an empty political slogan and all-round dismal failure.
As a result, the analysts said, there had been more "sloganeering" and blaming of non-existent sanctions by politicians for the fact that Zimbabwe was once again "on the verge" of being a failed State.
Emanating from this, the Daily News rated Patrick Chinamasa, the man who holds the country's critical Finance portfolio, a miserable 1 (one) out of a rating of 10 as he continues to flap and flail hopelessly ineffectively against the economic hardships bedevilling the country and its citizens.
One politician cruelly said of Chinamasa that he couldn't even be trusted to "organise a piss-up in a brewery", while an analyst said he could not "even run a rural bottle store, let alone an economy on its knees like Zimbabwe's".
With schools in a sorry state and the country's once lauded education sector on its knees, Education minister Lazarus Dokora scored a fat 0 out of 10.
Apart from a dismal pass rate at the country's schools, Dokora has also been tinkering and experimenting dangerously with the critical sector.
From controversial proposals to ban sports at school during the week, to outlandish statements that bordered on insulting the poor, Dokora left many Zimbabweans livid with anger.
And as he maintains that parents should be dragged to court for failure to pay school fees, Zimbabweans have pointed out to the obvious fact that he has failed to take into account the reality that many parents fail to pay fees not because they do not want to, but because they do not have the means because Zanu PF has destroyed the country and its once prosperous economy.
Tied with Dokora at ground level (zero) is the Sports minister Andrew Langa.
The under-fire minister controversially flew to Brazil to watch the Soccer World Cup in June when the country's national team, the Warriors, were nowhere near the Copa Cabana beaches of the South American country.
Analysts also point to the fact that sports in the country, just like the economy, is in intensive care, and the minister, apart from enjoying the costly Mercedes Benz and other luxuries associated with his lofty position, has been a dismal failure.
The minister came under a severe shellacking recently when he allocated $46 million for the little known African Union Sport Council Region Five Under-20 Youth Games, commonly known as the Zone Youth Games, which Zimbabwe hosted — yet he did not appear to give a hoot about the arts and all national sports.
Virtually all sports pundits felt this was wasted expenditure.
Health minister David Parirenyatwa, hamstrung by a lack of funding — with hospitals grossly understaffed, nurses struggling to get jobs and qualified doctors earning a paltry $283 a month — also scored zero.
The fact that the last time Parirenyatwa was minister of Health, that at least 4 000 people had needlessly died of cholera under his watch — did not help his rating.
But there was one predictable silver lining to the dark cloud engulfing the Cabinet ratings. Tourism and Hospitality minister Walter Mzembi continues to do well as was by far the best-rated politician — scoring 7 points out of 10.
Last year the indefatigable minister brought the world to Zimbabwe through the hugely successful United Nations World Tourism Organisation Assembly indaba, and he has this year commendably ignored Zanu PF's worthless factional politics, in large measure, to push through his tourism agenda.
Awed by the tourism awards bestowed on the country by the European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT), even Mugabe, who usually keeps his cards close to his chest, went into overdrive as he praised the hardworking and high-flying Mzembi — right in front of all of his Cabinet and senior government officials nogal!
This year, Zimbabwe was honoured as a major tourism destination and as the 2013 world's most preferred cultural destination after it successfully co-hosted the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly with Zambia.
Joseph Made, the Agriculture ministers scored zero as has become the norm over the years. Made, despite being the minister of Agriculture for 14 years, has failed dismally to revive the sector with his flawed agricultural mechanisation policies.
The minister suffered a further blow when the review team felt he was too arrogant and selfish when dealing with issues concerning the ministry.
Source - Daily News
