Charamba and the Pfeesident

WHOEVER said the more things change, the more they remain the same was not far off the mark, at least in relation to Zimbabwe.

We have a whole regime pretending to be a new dispensation but still stuck to same old ways of doing things.
For starters, some of the long-time actors of the ancient regime are still around.

How can it be a new dispensation when, barring a few individuals, the so-called new dispensation is teeming with all of Mugabe's implements?

One of them is George Charamba who was once (mis)quoted saying that when Mugabe leaves office, he will also leave and devote his remaining time, on this side of the grave, writing books and memoirs.

Fast forward to almost 20 months after Mugabe's departure, he is still the beak of the current pfeesident and he is not showing any sign of going anywhere.

If he is going anywhere at all, it is to the restroom and being part of the pfeesident's retinue to many of his useless foreign trips.

I think many Zimbabweans will excuse Charamba if he were to enjoy another moment on the feeding trough in silence. It is still his turn to eat after all, is it not?

However, George being the motor-mouth that he is, he has to eat and talk at the same time.

Last week, he was pretending to be an aviation expert saying things that can only make sense when one is either skunk drunk or decidedly stupid.

For instance, he saw nothing wrong with his boss hiring a private plane from Dubai so that he could go on a trip to Bulawayo.

He even found mirth to the question who must foot the pfeesident's globe-trotting bill.

"Well, who is flying in this case? The president, right? So, who do you want to foot the bill? It is government (euphemism for the taxpayer) because he is not travelling for his personal business. This is what international engagements come with. We would want to be part of the global village and we have to carry the cost," Charamba said in an interview with a weekly.

Very soon the pfeesident will be hiring wheelbarrows and brooms for his clean-up campaigns from Dubai on account of similarly curious reason.

However, Zimbabweans are not as foolish as George and ilk think; they were not surprised by his attempt to sanitise the pfeesident's profligacy.

No it does not wash
Charamba ploughed ahead and extolled the benefits of his boss's recent trip to the UAE (United Arab Emirates)

"...And you look at the benefits of that trip, the opportunities alone that came with that trip, surely the costs are way less than the results we reaped from the trip," he said.

Is this strictly true? Well, when did the pfeesident get the time to cut all these deals which "reaped results" when it was reported at that time that he had to cut short his trip to that country to come back home and attend to cyclone Idai crisis barely before he landed? See? The truth will always out.

When the pfeesident was said to be cutting short his visit to UAE, the truth was, the trip had in fact run its course.

Anyway, besides a plane with cyclone Idai aid which came latterly as an afterthought, what exactly did Zimbabwe and or its economy benefit from the pfeesident's trip to that Arab nation?

What Charamba said in the rest of the interview fits into one word — gibberish. He was so patronising to the reporter when he wanted to present himself as an aviation expert.

"Again you have to understand how the aviation industry works," he said in one of his responses.

The question is, does George Charamba understand how the aviation industry works at all to justify the hiring of a private plane from Dubai in order to go to Bulawayo.

In fact, this has nothing to do with aviation industry, it is common sense, stupid!

I liked the analogy which the journalist used to describe this nonsense. He said it "is like hiring a tax from Gweru to go to the airport from the city centre."

Is that commonsensical?

While it is true that the pfeesident cannot use Air Zimbabwe because there is no airline to talk about after years of maladministration under the last regime in which he was the state vice president.

However, the question that begs is, can the pfeesident not use the military aircraft to go to local places instead of hiring expensive planes from further afield?

Truth be told the pfeesident is just a profligate individual who is known for his expensive tastes.

He once hired a private plane to ferry the former feisty lady, I mean, the former first lady Grace Mugabe to go to a funeral.

Was he not the same individual before his promotion to the current work station, who was photographed drinking expensive whisky with the other praise singer who is now deputy a minister of information.

Remember the "I am the boss" mug?

Method to the madness
With the benefit of hindsight, the old man, Mugabe, was foresighted when he created a whole ministry of psychomotor activities.

This ministry would have come in particularly handy in the pfeesident's office because of the glaring disconnect we are witnessing, between him and his mouth.

The mouth does not seem to know what the hands are doing or vice versa.

The pfeesidential beak confirmed in so many words that the government hired a plane to go to Dubai.

Barely before the spittle from that interview had dried up, Charamba's boss came up with another propaganda narrative that the government never paid a cent for his trip to Dubai because it was all paid for by his hosts.

Really? So, what is the truth now?

The truth seems to have been lost in propaganda has it not? Hon Criss read a story recently that smoking of dagga at work impairs psychomotor abilities.

Could this be the reason why this time there is a disconnect between Charamba (the mouth) and the pfeesident?

All talk and no trousers