No weather for old men, Cdes

Dear Cabinet and Politburo members

COMRADES, I am unable to address you this week because of the inclement weather. I have no doubt that the British and their evil American cousins are playing havoc with our weather, not only to ensure that our revolutionary Command Winter Wheat programme fails, but also to keep our people from attending our popular youth rallies planned for the whole country. How else can one explain this devilish weather?

The weather is so bad that I could not address you, so I have decided to take a well-deserved break and enjoy quiet fireside moments with my grandson.

I will address you next week.

Kindest Regards

Yours Sincerely
ME

…AND THE NOTEBOOK

Clueless!
This week, Home Affairs Minister, Ignatius Chombo, announced that he had ordered the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to reduce police traffic check-points -commonly known in local parlance as "roadblocks"- to a maximum of four per province, starting next week.

On the surface of it, this is a long overdue move. But on close scrutiny, it does not take a rocket scientist to see the thoughtlessness of it all.

When one looks at Cde Chombo's hair, it is only natural that they should expect to get nothing short of fat pearls of rich wisdom…until the brother opens his mouth!

The problem with politicians is that - just like "prophets", soccer fans, newspaper columnists and marriage counsellors - they are experts in almost everything under the sun. In Cde Chombo's mind, what it means is that we have 10 provinces that are uniform in shape, size, population density, road network, traffic density, and everything else that could be relevant to matters related to traffic law enforcement… everything is uniform because Cde Chombo - in his manifold "wisdom"- wants them to be so!

Mashonaland East, Matabeleland North and Mashonaland West are the same, just as Masvingo, Harare Metropolitan, Midlands, Matabeleland South, Manicaland, Bulawayo and Mashonaland Central are the same!

It is exactly because of this thoughtless arrogance that we are in this mess as a country.

Not even a bush-trained traffic law enforcement expert could have come up with such a hare-brained "solution" to the problem.

Anyway, for starters, we are in this mess because of our politicians' myopic approach to issues. It was these politicians who ordered the police to use those traffic check-points as handy instruments to mint cash for a bankrupt government in the first place.

And the police officers - some of them actually criminals masquerading as law enforcement agents - being direct appointees of these clueless politicians, what could be expected of them?

A one-size fit all approach will not work. If anything, this actually defeats the very idea of having the checkpoints in the first place because the enforcement that will result from this would be worse than no enforcement at all.

The problem is not with the checkpoints, but the motive for which they were being set up. They were not being set up to ensure compliance with traffic regulations, but to fundraise for a desperate administration.

As a result of this irresponsible approach, one can safely say that more than two-thirds of vehicles on the country's roads are not roadworthy because the owners pay their way through the checkpoints.

Many car owners don't even know that when tyres are worn out, they have to buy new ones, instead of searching high and low for "good second-hand" ones. In addition to these vehicles having been imported as second hand, most spares used to fix them are almost always never new.

Dr CZ has many friends and relatives who expect to get change when they give a fuel attendant $10 when buying petrol that costs anything upwards of $1,30 per litre. You need to hear how most of them hiss when it comes to paying their quarterly licence fees. A good many - some of who even repair batteries - would rather make do with fake licence and insurance discs. Many more cannot afford paying the parking fees in the Harare central business district. And to make matters worse, a good number of them cannot afford to drive their cars every day. This is what is called genteel poverty. So to expect that person to keep that car in a pristine condition would be expecting nothing short of a miracle.

Nxa-ah!
A Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife official was this week tasked to announce that Command Fishing will create more than 1,2 million jobs!

Read this: ZimParks acting spokesperson Mr Simukai Nyasha told (the) Sunday News that a budget of about $1 million had been set, with funding coming from the government, the corporate sector and development partners.

Mr Nyasha said an estimated 1,2 million people across the country were expected to benefit from the programme at primary production level in addition to creating an estimated one million jobs in the fisheries industry and other downstream industries.

"Approximately one million is required to roll out this programme. Most dams will be stocked with bream while Kapenta will be introduced in Tokwe-Mukosi. Jobs to be created are very difficult to quantify.

"There are direct jobs and indirect jobs. But certainly over a million jobs because individuals will also venture into fish farming - not only relying on dams," he said.

The ZimParks acting spokesperson added: "With an average of five co-operatives per dam with a membership of 20 fishermen, these dams have the capacity to support 214 000 families. With an average family size of six, these dams if fully utilised will support 1 284 000 people throughout the country at the primary production level."

This is a miracle that would make a lot of false prophets in this country turn pinkish-blue with envy… a measly investment of $1 million creating 1,2 million-plus jobs! Well, like what Dr CZ pointed out recently, if properly tortured, statistics can also make fulsome confessions!

Meanwhile, the ZimParks' Cde Nyasha - whose spin-doctoring exploits are dangerously threatening Dr CZ's iconic status as the only ISO-certified patriot in the hereabouts -went on to tell us that the country has more than 10 700 dams! The brother certainly deserves more than just being appointed to that post in a substantive capacity, because he is certainly resourceful for the purpose of a national task at hand! Add this promising brother to Dr CZ's homeboy duo of Cdes Joseph Made and Patrick Chinamasa, all this country's problems would flee for their dear lives!

Dreamland
Last week, we were told that government - in its infinite wisdom - had banned all maize imports. The reason is to ensure that the struggling Zimbabweans pay more for their staple meals so that the powerful can reap big profits from the loans that they foisted on farmers under the Command Agriculture fraud. In a normal country, whoever produces what they decide to, should take their produce on the open market where they would compete freely with other producers to the benefit of the consumer. But, certainly not in this country, which was liberated through the blood of thousands who died to set us free.

Then this week another daydreaming government mandarin popped up to yawn loudly that Zimbabwe is expected to export maize anytime starting from the next harvest, as it shares the success of the Command Agriculture with the region. We wonder who in their right senses would afford to import into their country maize for which the farmers would have been paid US$390 per tonne when the region is producing it for as low as US$144 per tonne. This sickness is fast getting beyond the neck!

As we have seen before, when there is such a lucrative variation in producer prices, the temptation becomes too riveting for the politically-connected to import maize and deliver it to the Grain Marketing Board and pocket the profits. In fact, it makes more sense to do this, than being a farmer in the first place!

Scary!
Dr CZ is very, very scared on behalf of his many sisters who happen to be "small houses". You see, there is this gang of female church leaders that is organising a three-day anti-small house crusade at the end of this month - that is next week! - at which they will be seeking the death of any woman out there who is a small house. It doesn't matter whether you are a small house of a Cabinet minister, a pastor, a policeman, a farmer, a driver, a garden-"boy"… for as long as you are causing a scramble, you are the target of the fire that the cheeky ladies will be inviting to come down from up there.

It is dubbed the "Small House Must Die!" crusade.

Dear fan, please don't ask Dr CZ the chapter and verse in the good Bible that allows for this sort of thing, for even Dr CZ himself knows that a good Christian should love - and even pray for - everyone, including spouses' lovers so that they can repent and seek the face of God.

What we can assure you is that this event is most likely to draw bumper crowds. This reminds Dr CZ of a song by Kireni Zulu about how a pig roasts itself in its own fat… the story about Amai Firiziti who decided to find a permanent solution to the problem of promiscuous husbands by requesting the god of the rock to make these wayward husbands horribly disfigured… only to get a shock of her life when her own husband - the very loving Baba Firiziti - got caught up in the ruthless dragnet.

If God indeed works in mysterious ways, is it not possible that the very same women could end up crying tears of blood because some of them are also small houses to some other people … A small house does not fall off some unknown planet, but it is someone's daughter, sister, mother and anything. It would be interesting how these cheeky ladies would take it upon returning from the crusade to be told that several close female family members have just choked and died!

Still on small houses - also called smelly houses - Dr CZ's equally affable homeboy - Cde Dickson "Cde Chinx" Chingaira went to sleep with the ancestors last week. Those who are blessed to be seers among us had seen his death arriving sooner rather than later and had dutifully shared his estate ahead of his death. Only a few weeks ago, Cde Dr Amai made it very clear that Cde Chinx's second wife should not lay any claim to the newly donated house in Sentosa, Mabelreign. While we do not know what Dr Amai knows about small houses that make her think they are less humans, what we certainly know is that whatever she says becomes law.

This is the new law in Zimbabwe now. Small houses can go hang! Whoever said women are their own enemies should have been a woman and a half!