Opinion / Columnist
It is the 'Economic Meltdown, Stupid!' that is finally going to force Mugabe out of office!
17 Dec 2014 at 22:04hrs | Views
The economic meltdown, stupid! To paraphrase a twisted to fit version of the President Clinton catch phrase.
It was the strength of the American economy that secured President Clinton's second term re-election regardless of the Oval Office blow-job scandals. In Mugabe's cases it is the economic meltdown that will force him out of office although he had successfully rigged the national elections last year and then his own Zanu PF party elections this year.
After decades of denying there was no mismanagement or corruption and thus allowed these two cancerous problems the time to grow and spread; today the national economy is in ICU with malignant mismanagement and corruption, the tumours are the size of tennis balls and there are in every sector of the economy.
"It is understood that the Government workers' establishment rose from about 315,000 in 2009 to about 554,000 this year," the Herald newspaper reported.
Until know the regime has acknowledge the civil service was just over 230 000 and now we hear it is actually nearly twice the size! The bloated civil service is goggling up 80% of government revenue when the normal thing would be 40% or less. But worse still most of the workers are doing very little.
"What this means … basically is we are paying people to sit in their offices and not to undertake the operations," Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa admitted. But instead of biting the bullet and cut the labour force the Minister, so far at least, has resisted calls IMF and others to do so arguing will reduce size of the wage bill to collected revenue by growing the economy.
300 000 children are not going to school because their parents are too poor to pay the school fees and yet the regime is squandering tens of millions of dollars every month in salaries and allowances for presidium alone now composed of one President, two incumbent Vice Presidents and one retired Vice President. There are signs the presidium burden to the fiscus will swell up 50% soon with the addition of a retired President and an additional new VP.
Zimbabwe has given a new meaning to the expression more Chiefs than Indians to more filthy rich chefs to millions of povo wallowing in dehumanising abject poverty.
As much as this Zanu PF regime will try to ignore the country's worsening economic situation the evidence of human misery it is causing is everywhere. The regime is in denial as to the root causes of the economic meltdown and so the economy will remain in ICU.
So as long as Zanu PF remains in office the root causes of the economic meltdown will not be address and so the economic situation is set to get worse. I say Mugabe and Zanu PF will be forced to step down because, let us, face it the economic meltdown will never ever step down.
So yes, it is the "Economic meltdown, stupid!" that will bring this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship down.
Source - Wilbert Mukori
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
