Zimbabwe cholera outbreak versus misplaced priorities

In our last statement we mentioned the idea of being a crocodile abroad but a lizard abroad, it seems to us that the current government is in this respect falling into the trap that partially defined Mugabe's era.

President Mugabe for the better part of his final years spend time running a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth kind of government either from a chartered luxury plane or a plush hotel room on the side lines of an international conference and sometimes from one of his many holiday homes in the far east.

All this time the country was burning but the leadership heard about the plight on Facebook and international cable news channels.

When the people marched against him on the 18th of November 2017 they made a statement against such kind of leadership in other words they sought to demand a change of our leadership culture.

Unfortunately this change of mind set is visibly not embraced by the so called new administration, the country continues to burn.

In Chegutu a crippling cholera outbreak is wreaking havoc, as at today at least  four people have died and 22 cases have been recorded.

Without trivialising the need for reengagement the prominence being given to the trips around the globe by the new administration in the past weeks tells you a story about a leader who also admired the ways of Mugabe.

Just to restate on record reengagement work has been done before some of us from the MDC alliance who led the engagement initiatives know for a fact that during the Government of National Unity (GNU) did it with less resources bringing better results.

In some cases we even deployed a single person to renegotiate with the world including when we were fighting to regain our voting rights at the IMF.    

The point we make is that the cholera outbreak at home can be combated by a more serious government which puts its people first. The money being invested on the big delegation full of non-core actors can be put to better use, in areas where two or three people can do the job a sane leadership must not over deploy.

It is not only the cholera outbreak that is causing problems but also typhoid, yesterday in Kambuzuma new cases of the disease were detected.

Our problem is that 38 years after independence, in the 21st century, we still have outbreaks of ancient Stone Age diseases resulting from poor service delivery.

To make matters worse the rise in number of cases of cholera exposes the rhetoric around the populist high heels marathon around hospitals with no effort to improve the public health system, the failure to respond is now visible.

We argued in the MDC Alliance's alternative vision that the failure to monetise election issues in the 2018 budget will be at the expense of other sectors of fundamental importance.

As witnessed in the past few days the government in an attempt to buy souls has procured cars and are making promises to buy more cars which in our view is another misplaced priority.

We need to put our people first not only through the strengthening of our public health delivery system but also to fund the welfare state to ensure quality access to the vulnerable groups. We in the MDC Alliance will do just that.

Together Another Zimbabwe is Possible
Jacob Mafume
PDP Spokesperson, MDC Alliance Information Committee