Youth to ignore Independence Day celebrations

Most Bulawayo residents have said this years independence day is not worth celebrating due to grinding poverty.

The country turns 36 on Monday

Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association secretary for administration, Anglistone Sibanda, said the majority of youths in the country were living in abject poverty, making it impossible for them to value independence.

"April 18 to most people is the day the chefs attained the power to loot. For now we need a new government that will return the significance of the day by delivering. We can't put new wine in old wineskins. It is time people changed wineskins in order to enjoy the benefits of the sacrifices made by others," said Sibanda.

Ntandoyenkosi Dumani, a youth from Plumtree said  achievements were meaningless as long as it did not afford citizens fundamental freedoms and rights.

"As a young Zimbabwean, my lamentation during times like these is that of a dream deferred, that is a dream for freedom. Right now I am not free to ask what happened to our US$15 billion diamond revenue not because of independence, but subsequent choices that we made as a country which suppress freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and freedom of the press," said Dumani.

This was in reference to the US$15 billion, which President Robert Mugabe recently said was salted away by companies operating in Chiadzwa.

Bulawayo based political analyst, Michael Mdladla-Ndiweni, urged government to take a leaf from President John Magufuli of Tanzania who suspended independence gatherings in that country last year and urged people to clean the whole country.