'Patrick Chinamasa, How do you sleep at night?'

There comes a time in one's life where a line has to be drawn in terms of what's acceptable anymore and what is not.  I, for one, have had it and am saying ENOUGH to the Zanu PF government and in this particular instance to Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa.  

I could not believe my eyes when I read that the Ministry of Finance borrowed $1.4m from ABC bank for the purchase of luxury vehicles for its top officials, really, at a time of such economic turmoil? Where are your people's consciences? How do you sleep at night? And you want to call yourselves leaders? How do you manage to do this and where are your priorities at a time when:

 - Hospitals are dispensing expired drugs
 - There is no safe water for the people to drink, if at all their taps run
 - Underage pregnancies have become the order of the day at Chingwizi camp because girls are forced to sell their bodies for food
 - Roads  are full of craters in cities and, in rural areas, people are forced to walk long distances for transport because roads have become inaccessible
 - The girl child is missing school during her menstrual time because she cannot afford sanitary ware or she is risking her health by resorting to the use of cow dung as pads
 - Industrial areas have become as quiet as cemeteries
 - Companies are closing in numbers monthly – more joblessness

The list is endless and its nothing new, just a memory jog because you Minister Chinamasa and the rest of your colleagues in government seem to be losing it now, literally.  Your behaviour and insensitivity to the plight of the nation is no different from that of a mother who cooks a delicious meal in full sight of her children only to feed herself and does this repeatedly until the children starve to death. What do you make of such cruelty, such a heart of stone and such evil?  And is that mother not fit to be taken to a psychiatric unit let alone be charged with murder? You tell me you were Minister of Justice before. If the answer to the above is yes then my question to you is what right do you (and as Zanu PF government) have to continue calling yourselves leaders when you are indirectly responsible for the suicides taking place because some people are too weak to handle the economic stress and pressure, when people are dying in hospitals because there are no drugs and when the South African border continues to spit out our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers back home as corpses, having gone there in search of a better life because their own motherland has been reduced to ashes by people like you who - like that mentally disturbed mother - continue to fatten your stomachs and wallets and live luxuriously at the expense of the people.

First it was the loan from China meant for water equipment rehabilitation which was again used to buy vehicles. Instead of taking action against such mismanagement of funds you follow suit. So what is to stop other ministries from joining the club? But then again who can blame you when the President himself makes irresponsible pronouncements such as the economy is on a recovery path. You are all detached from the reality that baba namai Sekai experience on a daily basis.  God help us!  

You are lucky that elections are not held yearly, I bet you my last bearer cheque (because not all of us can afford to bet on the green back) that if elections were to be held tomorrow the only votes you would have would be from your Gushungo and Chinamasa clans for obvious reasons. Let me tell you openly and honestly as someone who is not detached from reality and hear people talk in kombis and in the streets. The very people you claim to have voted for you are now saying to each other ‘Takaresva kuvhota Sinyoro' (we voted wrongly pal) because you have delivered zilch to them since your so called victory last year and you rub it in by such insensitivity of luxuries. Sadly they have to recite that phrase for the next four years that is if we are lucky not to have COUNTRY CLOSED signs at all border posts by then. My apologies; I have digressed.

I'm not an Economist, but common sense tells me that a loan should be acquired to increase production lines not incentives. And what of the repayment facility through tax payers?  Is that loan not better off being used to create more export revenue which is the fuel that drives the economy in the absence of foreign direct investment, lines of credit and balance of payments support. Barter trade has resurfaced as the liquidity crunch worsens, but that is no solution, because at the end of the day companies need to convert the goods into cash to pay workers' salaries. I was really saddened to learn that a certain hotel is giving its retired workers plates and/or three nights hotel accommodation for them and their spouses as pension. Really, is this what you have reduced your own to, after years and years of their hard work and sweat?  One way or the other you shall have to account for your deeds some day.

Recently, Minister Chinamasa, while addressing captains of industry in Victoria Falls you blamed the introduction of the multi currency system in 2009 for the country's economic woes yet just about the same time last year as we prepared for elections Zanu PF trumpeted that it was you who brought us dollarisation and gave us relief from bagfuls of bearer's cheques in 2009. I suppose it's the same multi currency regime that is making a decision to buy posh cars worth millions of dollars while people go to bed hungry and while you turn a blind eye and pay a deaf ear to appeals of the less privileged parents in the dailies for money for operations that could save their children's lives, the future of this country! Musatambe nevanhu manzwa! (Don't take people for granted you hear!)  

Let me pen off by giving you a piece of advice, yours to ignore at your own peril. The only noble thing for you to do is what true leaders do and that is admit when they have failed and open themselves to assistance by way of listening to other people's ideas and suggestions. Admittedly a few top leaders in this cancerous and thorny government called Zanu PF have admitted failure and ended there, which is not good enough without letting others come in with solutions and other corrective measures to rescue the situation. However, if I'm to go back to the insane, cruel, insensitive, evil and murderous mother example, the only honourable thing to do is to step aside and let those with the people at heart and prepared to serve take over the reins for another day. Otherwise the Chinamasas and the rest of the Zanuians in control will take this country straight to the belly of hell.