Opinion / Columnist
Economic meltdown reality finally hit MPs, the gravy train riders - regime change is now in the air!
11 Feb 2015 at 15:05hrs | Views
"LEGISLATORS whose constituencies are outside Harare are sometimes resorting to hitch-hiking to the capital and often put up with friends when they travel to attend Parliament's business, it has emerged," New Zimbabwe reported.
Well, well so the economic hardships emanating from the country's economic meltdown are finally being felt by the nation's most pampered gravy train riders, the politicians!
All Zanu PF parliamentary and senate candidates in the July 2013 elections got new cars; a bribe to stop them de-campaigning Mugabe as happened in the 2008 elections when Mugabe polled significantly less votes compared to the Zanu PF candidate in each constituency - that was operation "Bora musango!" (Kick the ball into the bush!).
So to make sure his own party members will not sabotage him again Mugabe bribed them with new cars, $15 000 cash, lorry loads of Zanu PF T-shirts and other party regalia and campaign materials with the image of a very young looking Mugabe.
It was not only the traditional gravy train riders, the politicians, who made a killing from helping Mugabe rig the July 2013 elections. Mugabe paid the Israeli company, Nikuv, a princely sum $13 million to tamper with the voters roll; the modern day thirty pieces of silver for betraying a whole nation.
PR companies in UK and USA were paid millions to spruce up Mugabe's imagine with falsified reports of how the chaotic farm seizures was now resulting in increased agricultural production.
Even the ordinary people who were bussed to attend Zanu PF rallies and the hooded youths who cast the multiple votes – thanks to Nikuv's 6 million registered voters or half the population; a demographic impossibility is a country like Zimbabwe, which is why the voters roll have never been made public – they too got a few dollars and the T-shirts.
Rigging the 2013 elections must have costed Mugabe $ 5 billion at the very least, all of it paid for by the Zimbabwe taxpayer, of course. Many ministries received as little as 6% of their budget allocation with the rest of the money diverted to finance the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut.
Still, even with the government broke after the July 2013 rigged elections; Mugabe still dug deep to find millions to buy new BMW or Mercedes Benz cars for each one of the new Zanu PF ministers and deputy ministers. He had millions more put aside for very generous loan schemes for the rest of the newly elected politicians to buy new cars. But in true gravy train tradition, the pampered politicians have never stopped demanding for even more goodies and privileges!
Speaking on condition of anonymity, MPs told New Zimbabwe "all was not well with the august house" as Treasury has been inconsistent in providing the legislators with the necessary resources such as fuel coupons for travel to Harare, where Parliamentary business is conducted.
"We sometimes contribute towards buying fuel for a single car which would quite often take up to six MPs as we try to make ends meet," said one legislator from Matebeleland.
"All is not well with the August house!" my foot! Since the nation attained its independence in 1980 nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever well in Zimbabwe's parliament; instead of having men and women with at least some common sense the house has always been stuffed full of some of the most incompetent and corrupt individuals in the world. Whatever little common sense a few of them had it was overwhelmed by the sheer opulence of gravy train comforts showered at them by Mugabe as soon as they entered the house. After one bite they all become Mugabe's play toys to do with as he pleased!
After 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption the Zimbabwe economy has now completely collapse; no economy can sustain for long the relentless criminal waste of human and material resources that has been happening in Zimbabwe. When Mugabe rigged the 2013 national elections he was confident he will rig economic recovery too; but that has since proven to be a bridge too far even with the seasoned rigger like him because there was nothing to rig.
Economics is an exact science subject with well-established systems and well-defined rules; obey them and you will prosper and disregard them and you will suffer. Our pompous "Great Leader", Robert Mugabe, like all dictators thought he could dictate "gutsa ruzhinji" (mass prosperity) and lo behold the nation would enjoy mass prosperity regardless of all the criminal waste of resources that was going on at the same time. Of course the economy does not listen to the dictates of anyone and hence instead of mass prosperity we have mass poverty and the nation economy in ruins.
Zimbabwe's Parliamentarians should have stop Mugabe destroying the country's economy with his voodoo economics, they have not do so because the august house has always been full of idiots paid through gravy train comforts to do Mugabe's bidding.
This time, Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is so serious that Mugabe cannot keep up with all the usual no-expense spare gravy train comforts; the politicians can mourn and complain all they want, the gravy train ride is over.
Since the rigged 2013 elections, these MPs should have been worrying about how to revive the national economy but, clearly, they have not even noticed the economic meltdown. The reality of 90% plus unemployment rate and all the other equally bad economic performance indicators have not sunk in their heads.
The MPs and Senators are the nation's leaders and yet they have still do not understand that no economy in the world can survive much less thrive the burden imposed on it by criminal waste of resources due the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The waste is economically, socially and politically unsustainable and therefore Zimbabwe has to change or the economy will never ever recover.
After 35 years of relentless waste and with the national economy now in ICU; one had hoped that current crop of political leaders would have finally got the message that Zimbabwe's economic and political systems have failed and must be changed. Regime change, unpalatable to the Zanu PF ruling elite's ears as it may be, is now an absolute necessity for the nation's survival.
Still, now that the gravy train comforts are fast disappearing, like mist under the African sun, the necessity and inevitability of regime change will soon start to penetrate that hermetically sealed "damba", trifoliate orange, head sported by all Zimbabwe's gravy train riders! Now that the wheels have fallen off the gravy train; those resisting regime change will now see the futility of remaining on the gravy train that is going nowhere!
Well, well so the economic hardships emanating from the country's economic meltdown are finally being felt by the nation's most pampered gravy train riders, the politicians!
All Zanu PF parliamentary and senate candidates in the July 2013 elections got new cars; a bribe to stop them de-campaigning Mugabe as happened in the 2008 elections when Mugabe polled significantly less votes compared to the Zanu PF candidate in each constituency - that was operation "Bora musango!" (Kick the ball into the bush!).
So to make sure his own party members will not sabotage him again Mugabe bribed them with new cars, $15 000 cash, lorry loads of Zanu PF T-shirts and other party regalia and campaign materials with the image of a very young looking Mugabe.
It was not only the traditional gravy train riders, the politicians, who made a killing from helping Mugabe rig the July 2013 elections. Mugabe paid the Israeli company, Nikuv, a princely sum $13 million to tamper with the voters roll; the modern day thirty pieces of silver for betraying a whole nation.
PR companies in UK and USA were paid millions to spruce up Mugabe's imagine with falsified reports of how the chaotic farm seizures was now resulting in increased agricultural production.
Even the ordinary people who were bussed to attend Zanu PF rallies and the hooded youths who cast the multiple votes – thanks to Nikuv's 6 million registered voters or half the population; a demographic impossibility is a country like Zimbabwe, which is why the voters roll have never been made public – they too got a few dollars and the T-shirts.
Rigging the 2013 elections must have costed Mugabe $ 5 billion at the very least, all of it paid for by the Zimbabwe taxpayer, of course. Many ministries received as little as 6% of their budget allocation with the rest of the money diverted to finance the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut.
Still, even with the government broke after the July 2013 rigged elections; Mugabe still dug deep to find millions to buy new BMW or Mercedes Benz cars for each one of the new Zanu PF ministers and deputy ministers. He had millions more put aside for very generous loan schemes for the rest of the newly elected politicians to buy new cars. But in true gravy train tradition, the pampered politicians have never stopped demanding for even more goodies and privileges!
Speaking on condition of anonymity, MPs told New Zimbabwe "all was not well with the august house" as Treasury has been inconsistent in providing the legislators with the necessary resources such as fuel coupons for travel to Harare, where Parliamentary business is conducted.
"We sometimes contribute towards buying fuel for a single car which would quite often take up to six MPs as we try to make ends meet," said one legislator from Matebeleland.
"All is not well with the August house!" my foot! Since the nation attained its independence in 1980 nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever well in Zimbabwe's parliament; instead of having men and women with at least some common sense the house has always been stuffed full of some of the most incompetent and corrupt individuals in the world. Whatever little common sense a few of them had it was overwhelmed by the sheer opulence of gravy train comforts showered at them by Mugabe as soon as they entered the house. After one bite they all become Mugabe's play toys to do with as he pleased!
After 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption the Zimbabwe economy has now completely collapse; no economy can sustain for long the relentless criminal waste of human and material resources that has been happening in Zimbabwe. When Mugabe rigged the 2013 national elections he was confident he will rig economic recovery too; but that has since proven to be a bridge too far even with the seasoned rigger like him because there was nothing to rig.
Economics is an exact science subject with well-established systems and well-defined rules; obey them and you will prosper and disregard them and you will suffer. Our pompous "Great Leader", Robert Mugabe, like all dictators thought he could dictate "gutsa ruzhinji" (mass prosperity) and lo behold the nation would enjoy mass prosperity regardless of all the criminal waste of resources that was going on at the same time. Of course the economy does not listen to the dictates of anyone and hence instead of mass prosperity we have mass poverty and the nation economy in ruins.
Zimbabwe's Parliamentarians should have stop Mugabe destroying the country's economy with his voodoo economics, they have not do so because the august house has always been full of idiots paid through gravy train comforts to do Mugabe's bidding.
This time, Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is so serious that Mugabe cannot keep up with all the usual no-expense spare gravy train comforts; the politicians can mourn and complain all they want, the gravy train ride is over.
Since the rigged 2013 elections, these MPs should have been worrying about how to revive the national economy but, clearly, they have not even noticed the economic meltdown. The reality of 90% plus unemployment rate and all the other equally bad economic performance indicators have not sunk in their heads.
The MPs and Senators are the nation's leaders and yet they have still do not understand that no economy in the world can survive much less thrive the burden imposed on it by criminal waste of resources due the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The waste is economically, socially and politically unsustainable and therefore Zimbabwe has to change or the economy will never ever recover.
After 35 years of relentless waste and with the national economy now in ICU; one had hoped that current crop of political leaders would have finally got the message that Zimbabwe's economic and political systems have failed and must be changed. Regime change, unpalatable to the Zanu PF ruling elite's ears as it may be, is now an absolute necessity for the nation's survival.
Still, now that the gravy train comforts are fast disappearing, like mist under the African sun, the necessity and inevitability of regime change will soon start to penetrate that hermetically sealed "damba", trifoliate orange, head sported by all Zimbabwe's gravy train riders! Now that the wheels have fallen off the gravy train; those resisting regime change will now see the futility of remaining on the gravy train that is going nowhere!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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