The day Cyclone Mthuli came to town

Well, this Mthuli Ncube guy is bad news.
Witty and cunning are his attributes! He had an afternoon outing with journalists, last weekend, shared jokes and ideas, while he kept his joker to his chest.

For once, he told the journalists it was not an official meeting. It was just mere mixing and mingling, sharing of ideas and information.

He never looked like a man about to drop a bombshell. He indeed fooled the journalists, for within 24 hours, he struck like lightning, hitting dealers and money changers below the belt.

Unbeknown to journalists, he was sizing them up, all the time he talked to them he had his joker iridescent and ready to explode. The journalists now have other thoughts about him.

They have nicknamed his latest move to ban the multi-currency basket, Cyclone Mthuli.

It was indeed a cyclone.
He has silenced his critics. The dealers who thought the wheels had come off the Government machinery as the prices skyrocketed and the US dollar ran amok now know that the Government of the people is still in charge.

Even our small boy, Nelson, who for long, fooled some people into believing he had the keys to the economy was left dumfounded. Nelson, could not get even a grain of sand to throw. No jecha! He has not said a word, since. I am sure he is wondering how he did not see it coming, and probably needed all the sand from the Kalahari Desert to besmirch this.

Cyclone Mthuli hit him below the belt. I guess Nelson is sulking and licking wounds of humiliation. Maybe he is somewhere, eating his packet of Jiggies, which Cyclone Mthuli just handed him. Undignified Tendai Mbiti, sorry Biti, what a slip of the tongue, is at a loss too. You see, guys, the United States dollar is the United States dollar. Not Zimbabwean dollar. It is our prerogative as Zimbabweans to make our currency work. We must change our attitude and like what is ours. Let the cyclone rock!

Johana, Johana, Oooh Johana …
Politics is cheap Johana Mamombe! So you chose to have an addendum to your political CV by making claims of miscarriage at the hands of police?

Cheap politicking has its own limits, I guess. For once, womankind should be ashamed to have one of their own claim, she miscarried her two months' pregnancy because she was detained overnight by police, but without being violated physically or psychologically. Her claim raises issues on morality. So, this our young female MP, dubbed the youngest female in the august House, and is not married, yet she is favouring some man with unprotected sex?

With female MPs, like these, the girl child needs no enemies. The girl child has no one to look up to. Johana has thrown morality out through the window. Can, you Johana still claim to be a role model for young girls? What with HIV/Aids? What with teaching morals of abstinence? By the way, who impregnated you, our sister, without paying a cent in lobola?

Maybe we need to go deeper, without necessarily going agog into sleek science and medical jargon. In fact, for the avoidance of doubt, Johana, the medical term for miscarriage at that stage is called spontaneous abortion, but "spontaneous" is the key word, because the condition is not an abortion in the usual sense.

If your claim of miscarriage is true, then you must be careful about the source of your trouble. Your own health condition could be the source of your miscarriage or the source of your sperm could also be contaminated.

You might have to prove before the courts of law that you were in good shape before you had the miscarriage? Now you see, we are also forced to drag someone into the murky waters, by asking if the sperm that fertilised you was not contaminated, too. He is being dragged into your mess, by association. You could also have cervical inefficiency, yourself, after all. We are unapologetic, because you started it. I hope you have a certificate of fitness from your obstetric health provider.

For the benefit of you and those of your ilk, reasons of miscarriage can be one or more of those listed below.

    Infection
    Medical conditions in the mother, such as diabetes or thyroid disease.
    Hormone problems
    Immune system responses
    Physical problems in the mother
    Uterine abnormalities like fibroids and cysts

One fact for sure, Johana, is that you might have disgraced many by announcing you are indulging unprotected sex, before marriage.

We are also forced to ask if the pregnancy was secure, healthy-wise from the onset, if one's womb rejects blood on the occasion of overnight detention in police cells then that person could have been suffering from many other things. In your claim, you do not cite police brutality but claim, mere detention caused the miscarriage. But prior to your arrest, you were running up and about in Gweru at the MDC-Alliance congress, where you put pressure on yourself, as you fought your way into the MDC top echelons of power. Does that pressure ring a bell to you?

We are not fools, Johana, grandstanding of that kind always raises a stink and questions that you would ordinarily not be asked under normal circumstances. We should all be sympathising with you, but you chose to have an addendum on your political CV. Cow dung naturally attracts flies!

The forbidden fruit and the Gods of our prisons
We must all remember once maverick Munyaradzi Kereke from the land of stinking beetles, Bikita. The man, an epitome of arrogance and mischief, was finally thrown behind the bars in 2016 for rape. The courts gave him 14 good years to reform at the hands of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services.

Could it be that the creepy-crawlies and scoots (harurwa) are an aphrodisiac? We are told, Kereke impregnated his younger wife from prison. This had caused chaos and commotion, hearing and firings in the service. We are told, using the money his deals provided before incarceration, the bearded man was favoured with venue and time to access the forbidden fruit, behind bars. To his ancestors be the glory! We hear Kareke has now been transferred from Chikurubi Maximum Prison to Harare Prison, to pave way for more investigations.

Money is evil.
When you are fluid, you can literary do anything. We are told Kereke had an office in prison. Now guys, who does that in Zimbabwean prisons? Can it only be Kereke?

But you see, he is not alone. Robert Martin Gumbura, the great polygamists our out time, is also said to have been favoured with the fruit too, each time one of his wives visited.

They say Kereke and Gumbura are worshipped in prison. They are the gods of our prisons. We hope our dear Cde Paradzai Zimondi is able to account for what is happening in his backyard. Time, they say, is a great teacher.

Friction and fissures at ZTA
Well, again many things are happening in the tourism and hospitality industry. We are told, after the departure of combative, confrontational but hardworking Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive Karikoga Kaseke on the grounds of ill-health (may God favour him with fast and full recovery), things have fallen apart.

The mistake, our mole tells us, is that the parent ministry took Rita Likukuma, a board member and appointed her acting chief executive, automatically making her both a referee and a player in one match.

Is this not funny?
Ask National Parks! We are told she went overdrive on a witch-hunt and has destabilised the system to breaking point.

After all, she is learning on the job. And, after all, she sits on three other boards, making her too busy for the job of a full-time acting CEO.

The worst thing is that the public relations department of ZTA, which should be the face of the industry, has fallen into the wrong hands.

It is the worst ever. Journalists from across the divide have gone aloof at the appointment of one Chief Godfrey Koti, who by the way is not chief, but could be something else, should we remove the "c" and replace it with a "t". For the purposes of time, we will not go into Koti's education history. It will open a can of worms. We are also told he is fishing from the ZTA pond for love. We are also told on record that Koti left an unpaid bill in yonder Germany, after cohabiting with a woman, during a tourism expo, putting the image of the tourism board into disrepute. We are told Koti defrauded some journalists on the trip of their allowances, among then an editor of a private publication. Now this is serious stuff. The editor launched an official complaint. Bad habits do not die quickly.

Going forward, there is chaos, commotion and confusion as Koti has usurped powers of other PR practitioners in parastatals under the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry and yet no parastatal is superior to the other.

Koti, by the powers vested in himself, now claims to be the Group Public Relations Officer for ZTA, National Parks, Forestry Commission, Environmental Management Authority, etc. Journalists are now finding it hard to get information from all these parastatals.

Meanwhile Likukuma has no idea what tourism is. She has failed to keep her dog on leash. Editors in newspapers are also worried that Koti is now handpicking journalists for assignments, which is not his job.

But again, what we are experiencing from Koti is what turns journalists against any institution.

Can someone please stop this boy. Can he also go back to school and get real qualifications? He has turned journalists against the organisation and soon the projects will suffer. In fact, ZTA is no longer visible. It is gone.