'We offering civil servant salary increment' promised Minister Moyo - where are you getting the money from

"GOVERNMENT has a salary increment offer for civil servants to cushion them from the prevailing economic challenges set to be tabled before a National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) soon, acting Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo, has said," reported Nehanda Radio.

"We have heard the plight of our civil servants, especially of prices which are going up. Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and secretary for Finance George Guvamatanga have been able to explain the nature of the economy and arbitrage that is taking place where prices are going up, sometimes without explanation.

"That is why when Government interrogates certain sectors of the economy, again irrationally, you see them reducing prices and the fundamental question becomes why are the prices going up in this economy in the manner they are going? It is impacting on civil servants and the generality of the people," he said.

So government is blaming "the manufacturers and retailers responsible for arbitrary price increases" for the economic meltdown and the worsening economic situation. How convenient.

Our hospitals and schools are in a deplorable state with no basic equipment and medicine as a result of decades of underfunding. Is government blaming manufacturers and retailers for that too!

The root causes of the country's worsen economic situation are the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the country's well-earned reputation as a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The whole idea of the "new dispensation" following the November 2017 military coup was premised on change; a new Zanu PF party that was willing to address the nation's problems head-on.
 
Now it is clear the coup was about wrestling power from Mugabe and his wife and their G40 faction and nothing else.

The very fact that Mnangagwa undertook his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" mantra with such passion and pizazz straight after the 15 November 2017 coup, before he had done anything to convince the world Zanu PF had given up its dictatorial powers, shows just how naive Mnangagwa is. He genuinely expected the investors and lenders alike to flood back into Zimbabwe on the basis of his word that Zimbabwe was open for business.

After blatantly rigging the recent elections Zanu PF confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state and sealed the nation's fate of any meaningful economic recovery. Investors, local and foreign, do not do business in a pariah state; we should all know this by now after all the decades of economic decline under Mugabe's pariah state.

Who would want to invest in a country in which one has to queue for fuel, food, money, etc. and whenever things go wrong they are the scapegoat of the regime. Mnangagwa called those responsible for price increases "gluttonous opportunists" at the Zanu PF conference last month!

"The conclusion of this discussion is that they (workers) should now, whether immediately or tomorrow, go into negotiations where Government will make an offer in terms of ameliorating the plight of the civil service in the areas that they have demanded, that is in transport, salaries and other non-monetary issues such as housing," said Minister Moyo.

Of course, he did not reveal the salary increase government is offering to avoid having to answer the question: where is government get the money from! The country's revenue collection base has been shrinking because of the worsening economic situation and the regime has been looking at ways to reduce its expenditure not to increase it!

At the heart of Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation is the problem of bad governance, exemplified by the blaming of retailers for the country's ills and not the failure to lift the curse of pariah state.
 
Zimbabwe must implement the democratic reforms designed to give the people back their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Free, fair and credible elections is the only sure way to end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state.
 
We need to break the vicious cycle of rigged elections and bad government of the last 38 years. Zanu PF rigged the recent elections and allowing it to remain in power will only help perpetuate the system. The regime must be told in no uncertain terms that the mandate to rule the country comes from the people in free, fair and credible elections. Since the party rigged the recent elections, it is illegitimate and must therefore step down.

If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in power to the 2023 elections, then we can be 100% certain the party will rig those elections too! The party must be forced to step down now to allow time to implement the reforms if the next elections are going to be free and fair.