Opinion / Columnist
From Great Zimbabwe to Zimbabwe Ruins with Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa
10 Jan 2019 at 12:33hrs | Views
With great good hope Zimbabweans of all polical affiliation, race, colour and creed poured-out onto the streets, led by Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, to tell Mugabe of The Enough of the journey from The Great Zimbabwe-To -Zimbabwe Ruins!
Robert Mugabe had utilised both the known and the unknown tricks in the book to undo The Great Zimbabwe inherited from Rhodesia's Ian Douglas Smith Rhodesia Front givernment into the then prevailing Zimbabwe Ruins.
Mugabe errantly governed Zimbabwe for almost 38 years of extra-judicial killings that saw over 20 000 Matabele people massacred over a period of about five years! The list of missing persons running high with journalist Itai Dzamara still unaccounted for to this day! And all known men and body guards either known or suspected to have bed-hopped Mugabe's youthful armourous wife, Grace. Wanton looting of public resources and the destroyal of state owned enterprices through both crony-kangaroo management and protected looting with now sitting president Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as trusted and influential Minister of State Security and had occupied various other such influential positions around Mugabe! This saw Mugabe'stinkigly corrupt Brother-In-Law, Dr. Sydney Gata, being recycled into the power utility, Zimbabwe Electircity Supply Authority (ZESA), despite his shameful previous exit. ZESA, inevitably, took for an irrepairable non-stop nose-dive to the present! At the national life-blood transport utility, The National Railways of Zimbabwe, then Smith inherited General Manager, John Avery, went on an affirmative action forced retirement to make way for a Mugabe blue-eyed boy, Farai Masango. A former railways engine-driver with a Junior Certificate as his highest academic credential and zero relevant managerial expertise. The time had come for vodoo management. And surely, where else could The National Railways of Zimbabwe go other than into that logical dust-bin. Air Zimbabwe lived never to be operationally the same as Ian Smith's Air Rhodesia. Had, at one time, flown with one passenger from Victoria Falls to Harare. And with only three (3) in-laws of the late then Minister of Transport, Dr. Hebert Usheweokunze from London to Harare for his wedding to his then 17 year old spouse to be, Vimbai. And continuously commandeered off-route for Mugabe liability flights. VaMapondera vakaponda ZISCO STEEL zvebasa kuKweKwe uko! Gross incompetence and pick-pocketing all-over. The public service became the quickest way into the irrational quick wealth creation game for the favoured few to the point that when former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, made it known to Mugabe that Zimbabwean Cabinet Ministers had frustrated South African potential investors by asking for millions of dollars in entry bribes up-front prior to doing business. The report was denied the light of the day. The country inevitably sunk from The Great Zimbabwe to Zimbabwe Ruins in this way in the hands of Mugabe.
With the coming of Mnangagwa'Second Republic anchored upon his "Zimbabwe is open for business" mantra! Alas! it has continued to fast- slide into the status of that Great Zimbabwe Ruins in a smarter but most effective way! While Mnangagwa had successfully played an impressive window-dresser on the square-wheels, the same wheels have devastatingly failed to turn an inch! With The Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s most fragile parliament running with ordinary thuggish illiterate street material parliamentarians that has so far debated over the issue of executive V8 Toyota vehicles for parliamentarians despite the respective country's devastating fuel situation, three course meals at parliament and an urgent review of parliamentary allowances/salaries, and nothing for their respective constituents. A parliament resembling that of former Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada that saw even the local taxi-drivers and criminals making it into parliament and cabinet respectively. Zimbabwe, technically, faces all the dangers of running without an authentic or functional parliament till the next election in five years time. And Mnangagwa governing with a blank-cheque anointing! Parliamentary debate has sunk to the level of SADC's worst hog-wash and prize-winning real circus! Assured of poor quality legislation and development. Mnangagwa has missed it! To turn those square wheels Mnangagwa has to open Zimbabwe for democracy as a pre-requisite. No institution could successfully open for business before it opened for democracy as business thrived on democratic security. Business thrives on predictable outcomes and quality legislation especially in a former world-class economy now known to so whimsically invoke lawlessness as a mode of governance. He, Mnangagwa and The SADC have to administratively respect the narrow electoral margin of about 400 000 votes between himself and his nearest rival Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Mnangagwa has failed to exit the prevailing political quagmire over his contested ascendency to power over the July 31 2018 elections that ended with the shooting of six civilians in the capital, Harare, by the military. Mnangagwa and his suspected illegitimately ruling ZANU PF, political greed-drive, have made no sense of a sensibly negotiated settlement with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change for the good of Zimbabwe and all its people. The ruling party remains as destined to see more graves than people. Mnangagwa has not been moved by the current state of the masses that has continued to deteriorate with each day that passes! Citizens eating thorns under psychological duress! Unlike elephants in the game park that feed on thorns by choice. Walking into a Zimbabwean supermarket now has become worse than being pushed into the police cells! (chitokisi). Hostile prices well above citizenry earning power! Mnangagwa abantu badlani! Vanhu varikudyei vaGarwe wee? For this reason Zimbabwe's middle income status by 2030 remains as a confirmed mirage unless if common sense prevailed which would see either the constructive engagement of the opposition or an accepted defeat of ZANU PF. If not, by 2025 Zimbabwe would have sunk deeper as an unclassified economy despite the fact that it could be holding thick files of unactionable Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)! And by 2030 it would have sunk into a proper dust-bin economy worse than a country just emerged from a devastating war.
Mnangagwa has continued to condemn state owned enterprises in his own smart but most destructive way as compared to that of former president Robert Mugabe. By forcing state-owned enterprises to pretend that Zimbabwe's own home-made stationery currency, The Bond Note and Coin, scarce in the local market and yet abundantly available in sealed-rims in neighbouring countries, weighs as equal to the genuine United States Green Back remains as the most uninformed nasty day-dream of the twenty first century. A disaster that has seen The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) trading in the cheapest energy in the region. The traditionally known cheapest energy, gas, now costs more than five times as much as electricity. Naturally, there has been a voluminous shift to the use of the now bargain electricity with multitudes having retired gas cylinders for this artificial Mnangagwa gravy train. South Africa's highly publicised State Capture left the national power utility, Eskom, unable to meet its internal maitenance costs having been ruthlessly looted by the favoured few. Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), Air Zimbabwe (AZ), Grain Marketing Board (GMB), The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), and The Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC), to mentlion but just a few, face a grand challenge of inevitable collapse manifesting in the failure to raise enough revenue for maintenance in the very near future before one thinks of other operational costs, as these already desperate institutions seek to fulfil this Mmnangagwa wild liability dream! High Cost Dream (HCD). Equally sinking down into the operational dust bin are Zimbabwe's local authorities that have this far failed to recuperate from Mugabe's populist bill write-off regime. Mnangagwa's commercial idiotcy has opened-up the drain of poverty to these institutions and Zimbabwe as a whole. Citizenry impoverishment of the highest order. One never stops as to wondering as what ZANU PF celebrates with the anointing of Mnangagwa as its 2023 presidential candidate! Zero achievements on the table beyond empty rhetoric and the forced retirement of Mugabe! Or as to what it celebrates with the long-winding fuel queues in all urban areas.
Like Mugabe, Mnangagwa has come-out guns-blazing over a 5 million dollar solicited bribe from a potential South African investor by one of his unnamed cabinet ministers! This matter has been left not to see the next day-light. All known cases of corruption have been left to faint before day-break in the hands of a window-dresser customised anti-corruption authority. The first critical Mnangagwa 100 days in office with the "own-up or be named, shamed and brought to book" campaign vanished with no known results. Such names were either dramatically plucked-up or down! And the game ended at that note. This makes it very difficult not to see that Mnangagwa has risen with an equally stinkingly corrupt hand and heart to arrest corruption! Inevitably, that would give Zimbabwe zero milestone as these hands were birds of the same feather flocking together as enemies of national development!
The window-dresser First Lady, Auxilia Mnangagwa, intervention in the Ministry of Health Doctors strike remains as a total null and void act! Crocodile tears! She talks of Client Service Management for hospital personnel such as nurses! And pursuades doctors to return to work in hospitals with empty dispenseries! Zero hospital sundries! Broken-down theatres! Ambulances off-road! Non-functional radiographies and unavailable x-ray films! All-round high levels of demotivation! Doctors called to a new challenge to go back to work to superintend over painful avoidable deaths in these hospitals-cum now most sure death stations of Zimbabwe. Worse than a battlefield! And the elite flying-out for quality medical attention at the expense of the majority tax-paying citizenry. This remains as a sure move to graveyard rule with municipalities continuously scouting for new such land.
Local authorities must now brace themselves for wild-cat Mnangagwa induced service delivery protests! And the aggressive ZANU PF campaign over matters of service delivery efficiency by all-opposition urban areas. And the accelerated industrial fold-up and high all-ages unemployment levels. This hurriedly reduces Mnangagwa's urban renewal campaign into just another of his various artistic and most colourful but empty.theories. Zimbabwe has now arrived in Mnangagwa'Second Republic Great Zimbabwe Ruins.
Reginald Thabani Gola. regtgola@gmail.com
Robert Mugabe had utilised both the known and the unknown tricks in the book to undo The Great Zimbabwe inherited from Rhodesia's Ian Douglas Smith Rhodesia Front givernment into the then prevailing Zimbabwe Ruins.
Mugabe errantly governed Zimbabwe for almost 38 years of extra-judicial killings that saw over 20 000 Matabele people massacred over a period of about five years! The list of missing persons running high with journalist Itai Dzamara still unaccounted for to this day! And all known men and body guards either known or suspected to have bed-hopped Mugabe's youthful armourous wife, Grace. Wanton looting of public resources and the destroyal of state owned enterprices through both crony-kangaroo management and protected looting with now sitting president Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as trusted and influential Minister of State Security and had occupied various other such influential positions around Mugabe! This saw Mugabe'stinkigly corrupt Brother-In-Law, Dr. Sydney Gata, being recycled into the power utility, Zimbabwe Electircity Supply Authority (ZESA), despite his shameful previous exit. ZESA, inevitably, took for an irrepairable non-stop nose-dive to the present! At the national life-blood transport utility, The National Railways of Zimbabwe, then Smith inherited General Manager, John Avery, went on an affirmative action forced retirement to make way for a Mugabe blue-eyed boy, Farai Masango. A former railways engine-driver with a Junior Certificate as his highest academic credential and zero relevant managerial expertise. The time had come for vodoo management. And surely, where else could The National Railways of Zimbabwe go other than into that logical dust-bin. Air Zimbabwe lived never to be operationally the same as Ian Smith's Air Rhodesia. Had, at one time, flown with one passenger from Victoria Falls to Harare. And with only three (3) in-laws of the late then Minister of Transport, Dr. Hebert Usheweokunze from London to Harare for his wedding to his then 17 year old spouse to be, Vimbai. And continuously commandeered off-route for Mugabe liability flights. VaMapondera vakaponda ZISCO STEEL zvebasa kuKweKwe uko! Gross incompetence and pick-pocketing all-over. The public service became the quickest way into the irrational quick wealth creation game for the favoured few to the point that when former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, made it known to Mugabe that Zimbabwean Cabinet Ministers had frustrated South African potential investors by asking for millions of dollars in entry bribes up-front prior to doing business. The report was denied the light of the day. The country inevitably sunk from The Great Zimbabwe to Zimbabwe Ruins in this way in the hands of Mugabe.
With the coming of Mnangagwa'Second Republic anchored upon his "Zimbabwe is open for business" mantra! Alas! it has continued to fast- slide into the status of that Great Zimbabwe Ruins in a smarter but most effective way! While Mnangagwa had successfully played an impressive window-dresser on the square-wheels, the same wheels have devastatingly failed to turn an inch! With The Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s most fragile parliament running with ordinary thuggish illiterate street material parliamentarians that has so far debated over the issue of executive V8 Toyota vehicles for parliamentarians despite the respective country's devastating fuel situation, three course meals at parliament and an urgent review of parliamentary allowances/salaries, and nothing for their respective constituents. A parliament resembling that of former Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada that saw even the local taxi-drivers and criminals making it into parliament and cabinet respectively. Zimbabwe, technically, faces all the dangers of running without an authentic or functional parliament till the next election in five years time. And Mnangagwa governing with a blank-cheque anointing! Parliamentary debate has sunk to the level of SADC's worst hog-wash and prize-winning real circus! Assured of poor quality legislation and development. Mnangagwa has missed it! To turn those square wheels Mnangagwa has to open Zimbabwe for democracy as a pre-requisite. No institution could successfully open for business before it opened for democracy as business thrived on democratic security. Business thrives on predictable outcomes and quality legislation especially in a former world-class economy now known to so whimsically invoke lawlessness as a mode of governance. He, Mnangagwa and The SADC have to administratively respect the narrow electoral margin of about 400 000 votes between himself and his nearest rival Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Mnangagwa has failed to exit the prevailing political quagmire over his contested ascendency to power over the July 31 2018 elections that ended with the shooting of six civilians in the capital, Harare, by the military. Mnangagwa and his suspected illegitimately ruling ZANU PF, political greed-drive, have made no sense of a sensibly negotiated settlement with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change for the good of Zimbabwe and all its people. The ruling party remains as destined to see more graves than people. Mnangagwa has not been moved by the current state of the masses that has continued to deteriorate with each day that passes! Citizens eating thorns under psychological duress! Unlike elephants in the game park that feed on thorns by choice. Walking into a Zimbabwean supermarket now has become worse than being pushed into the police cells! (chitokisi). Hostile prices well above citizenry earning power! Mnangagwa abantu badlani! Vanhu varikudyei vaGarwe wee? For this reason Zimbabwe's middle income status by 2030 remains as a confirmed mirage unless if common sense prevailed which would see either the constructive engagement of the opposition or an accepted defeat of ZANU PF. If not, by 2025 Zimbabwe would have sunk deeper as an unclassified economy despite the fact that it could be holding thick files of unactionable Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)! And by 2030 it would have sunk into a proper dust-bin economy worse than a country just emerged from a devastating war.
Mnangagwa has continued to condemn state owned enterprises in his own smart but most destructive way as compared to that of former president Robert Mugabe. By forcing state-owned enterprises to pretend that Zimbabwe's own home-made stationery currency, The Bond Note and Coin, scarce in the local market and yet abundantly available in sealed-rims in neighbouring countries, weighs as equal to the genuine United States Green Back remains as the most uninformed nasty day-dream of the twenty first century. A disaster that has seen The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) trading in the cheapest energy in the region. The traditionally known cheapest energy, gas, now costs more than five times as much as electricity. Naturally, there has been a voluminous shift to the use of the now bargain electricity with multitudes having retired gas cylinders for this artificial Mnangagwa gravy train. South Africa's highly publicised State Capture left the national power utility, Eskom, unable to meet its internal maitenance costs having been ruthlessly looted by the favoured few. Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), Air Zimbabwe (AZ), Grain Marketing Board (GMB), The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), and The Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC), to mentlion but just a few, face a grand challenge of inevitable collapse manifesting in the failure to raise enough revenue for maintenance in the very near future before one thinks of other operational costs, as these already desperate institutions seek to fulfil this Mmnangagwa wild liability dream! High Cost Dream (HCD). Equally sinking down into the operational dust bin are Zimbabwe's local authorities that have this far failed to recuperate from Mugabe's populist bill write-off regime. Mnangagwa's commercial idiotcy has opened-up the drain of poverty to these institutions and Zimbabwe as a whole. Citizenry impoverishment of the highest order. One never stops as to wondering as what ZANU PF celebrates with the anointing of Mnangagwa as its 2023 presidential candidate! Zero achievements on the table beyond empty rhetoric and the forced retirement of Mugabe! Or as to what it celebrates with the long-winding fuel queues in all urban areas.
Like Mugabe, Mnangagwa has come-out guns-blazing over a 5 million dollar solicited bribe from a potential South African investor by one of his unnamed cabinet ministers! This matter has been left not to see the next day-light. All known cases of corruption have been left to faint before day-break in the hands of a window-dresser customised anti-corruption authority. The first critical Mnangagwa 100 days in office with the "own-up or be named, shamed and brought to book" campaign vanished with no known results. Such names were either dramatically plucked-up or down! And the game ended at that note. This makes it very difficult not to see that Mnangagwa has risen with an equally stinkingly corrupt hand and heart to arrest corruption! Inevitably, that would give Zimbabwe zero milestone as these hands were birds of the same feather flocking together as enemies of national development!
The window-dresser First Lady, Auxilia Mnangagwa, intervention in the Ministry of Health Doctors strike remains as a total null and void act! Crocodile tears! She talks of Client Service Management for hospital personnel such as nurses! And pursuades doctors to return to work in hospitals with empty dispenseries! Zero hospital sundries! Broken-down theatres! Ambulances off-road! Non-functional radiographies and unavailable x-ray films! All-round high levels of demotivation! Doctors called to a new challenge to go back to work to superintend over painful avoidable deaths in these hospitals-cum now most sure death stations of Zimbabwe. Worse than a battlefield! And the elite flying-out for quality medical attention at the expense of the majority tax-paying citizenry. This remains as a sure move to graveyard rule with municipalities continuously scouting for new such land.
Local authorities must now brace themselves for wild-cat Mnangagwa induced service delivery protests! And the aggressive ZANU PF campaign over matters of service delivery efficiency by all-opposition urban areas. And the accelerated industrial fold-up and high all-ages unemployment levels. This hurriedly reduces Mnangagwa's urban renewal campaign into just another of his various artistic and most colourful but empty.theories. Zimbabwe has now arrived in Mnangagwa'Second Republic Great Zimbabwe Ruins.
Reginald Thabani Gola. regtgola@gmail.com
Source - Reginald Thabani Gola.
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