Tendai Biti is a failure

Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, has shown that he is a man who cannot handle the portfolio in which he has been entrusted by the inclusive government to run. His move of snubbing civil servants on 24 July 2012, in their time of need, should send a clear message to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe they should scout for Biti's replacement.

He has exhibited his failure to handle such challenging issues in government and the only thing which the inclusive government must do is to relieve him of his duties and be assigned other portfolios so that the country is served from such embarrassment.

Biti's claim that he has no resources to award civil servants' salaries commensurate with the poverty datum line is a fallacy meant to save face from a failed Minister. Biti knows quite well that resources are there but he is just frustrating civil servants for political gains.

Every time when confronted with pressing issues that need his attention, Tendai Biti hides and only to resurface somewhere at a later stage with unsatisfying explanations meant to divert attention from his failure to handle the national purse. His rhetoric of asking civil servants to give him trees that bear money and of asking the same people to show him stones to squeeze in order to get money for them is rude and undiplomatic.

In June 2011, Biti failed to meet war veterans who had gathered at his offices demanding, among other issues increment of their monthly payouts and civil servants' salaries.  The war veterans also demanded that Tendai Biti should stop taking instructions from International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying that he was strongly warned by IMF not to increase civil servants salaries.

Biti, as Finance Minister was bound to take the bull by its horns but he sneaked out of office instead of explaining to the gathered war veterans why he was failing to award civil servants salary increments as well as the war veterans' payouts. He left unnoticed yet he tells those who care to listen that government has no resources.

It is surprising that Tendai Biti is good at hide and seek game with civil servants every time when confronted by them only to resurface somewhere with unsubstantiated statements which have now become monotonous. Biti always wants to tell the hungry civil servants that government has no money to award them an increment as it is failing to get remittances from diamond mines.

One wonders why diamond issues have just come on the forefront when other sectors of the economy, which can give government revenue, are ignored. He is failing to whip Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) to collect revenue from all sectors of the economy so that resources are availed to serve the country from collapse.

The country is endowed with a lot of minerals like gold, platinum, chrome, iron etc as well as tourism and agricultural products that should help increase the revenue purse but Minister Biti is blinded to that. He must know that the country has been surviving without diamond money until he became the Finance Minister in 2009 so such claims that government has no money because diamond mines are failing to remit funds to government are wrong.

Could the Finance Minister tell the public how it was feasible for his predecessors to make civil servants get their salaries without diamond money? Lest I may be rebuked by the public believing that l am defending diamond miners, which is not the case. The problem here is that we must not get to a situation where one individual tries to settle his political goals by misleading the public.

This country has been doing quite well without money from diamonds, until that unforgettable hyper-inflationary era. While l cannot finger-point someone as at fault for that unfortunate era media reports have pointed out that it was again the Finance Minister with the help of his associates who called for sanctions to be imposed on this country, resulting in that unfortunate era.

Minister Biti is always on the receiving end when it comes to issues to do with the plight of Zimbabwean people. He always wants to be recognized internationally as a minister who seems to be disciplined when it comes to using government resources. He does not realize that his actions are devastating government workers' moral resulting in corrupt activities that has of late gripped the nation.

Close analysis of Biti's behaviour would show that he is not concerned with what an ordinary man needs. What he likes is recognition from the IMF at the expense of the plight of ordinary people.

Since he became Minister of Finance in 2009, he has not shown any interest of making this country appear good on the world map.

In August 2009, Finance Minister claimed that Zimbabwe was a failed state although statistics on the ground were indicating that the country was on a recovery road. Biti told United States of America Treasury official, Andy Baukol that Zimbabwe was a failed state despite the fact that in 2009, the Zimbabwe economy had progressed tremendously in the first seven months from a pace of US$4million dollars in January 2009 to US$90million in July of the same year.

Zimbabweans must now know that until that time Biti would be replaced with someone else, they are going to suffer with no solutions in sight.

For the first time in history civil servants failed to get their annual increment in January which had been the norm in previous years. What Biti managed to do was to award senior employees in government and bought vehicles for them leaving junior employees in the dark.

He always wants to justify his refusal to award civil servants salary adjustments on flimsy claims that the government is broke. Anywhere time would tell whether Tendai Biti's allegations are true.