MPs for sale, damnable loans

DEAR President Emmerson Mnangagwa,

Your Excellency, as I see it, the Legislature ought to have felt unease about the impropriety of accepting housing loans from Treasury at a time hospitals are in dire straits. It is damnable that they scooped it without qualms. Methinks they ought to have had compunctions about it.

If you were to invite me to share with you the opportunity cost of your said loan, I would do so off the cuff, without a stammer. Apparently, public service infrastructure is in dereliction. Show me a Cabinet minister who is proud of the ambience and service delivery of their ministry, and I will show you a horrible impostor masquerading as an honourable.

Public service delivery system throughout the country has glumly deteriorated for want of funding and strategic forethought. Public amenities, police quarters, hospitals, registration offices and so forth throughout the country are in a state of total neglect.

Your Excellency, recently, there were lamentations over the meagre upkeep provisions of the defence forces.

It was noted that their scanty welfare was below the sustenance quality ideal for professional forces mandated to protect the nation.

There is a token public transport service. Concededly, the National Railways of Zimbabwe ceased to roll on the rails. Its counterparts, the Zimbabwe United Passenger Campany (Zupco) and Air Zimbabwe are disconcerting their former reputations.

It was out of extreme desperation that some retired long-distance buses were recently given a second lease of life. Notwithstanding their dilapidation, the ramshackles were retrieved from retirement. They were adorned with the Zupco logo and commissioned to ferry passengers. Conversely, the rattling fleet showcases the failed public transportation service.

It is known that the public service workforce is forlorn, hamstrung by malaise. It is incapacitated by the servant salaries. There are resignations galore. Even the proposal to withhold certificates of medical graduates cannot stem the tide.

Actually, the public health sector is in rude health. If probity had prevailed, at least one of the public utilities could have deservedly benefited from the lump sum. Woebegone, you opted to lavish your political kith and keen in spite of the crippling national electricity outage.

Your Excellency, despite your being chancellor of all State universities, academic doyens at these institutions are nonetheless resigning in droves. There are concerns that learning is now threatened with compromise as under-qualified lecturers are being hired.

Besides the many public service provisions that are needful of attention, it could have been a stately concession had the money been channelled to victims of State-sanctioned brutalities. The victims of repression are yet to be treated humanely. They are compelled to hope for restitution.

Apparently, the list of forgone alternatives stretches far. It suffices to rest my case here. It is ironic that the sanctions, for once, were not an inhibitor for the disbursement of the loans at the expense of public utilities.

Despite the conclusions by the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry into the military onslaught on citizenry on the fateful afternoon of August 1, 2018, the victims are nonetheless anguished by waiting on end for restitution. As if to rub salt on their broken hearts, since then, government has shown no contrite heart.

It has not bothered to prosecute the perpetrators of the shootings as per recommendation by the commission. Considering the devil-may-care attitude towards the plight of the victims, the perished citizenry is mostly regarded, unfortunately so, as inevitable collateral damage.

Your Excellency, it is commendable that you appointed a commission of enquiry that comprised eminent persons to investigate the shootings. Yet, conversely, it is condemnable that the recommendations are being followed through perfunctorily.

It is a depression of the human spirit that hopes for the closure of military executed assault on citizenry is stalled for want of heart and enthusiasm. Ordinarily, mourns of the people thrust any mortal, moreso a listening soft as wool President, into rueful disquiet.

Their dolorous humming has an inexplicable way of penetrating even the fortified high offices and palaces. Ancient wisdom has it that as the wind blows, it conveys plaintive sighs of the led. Hence, leaders are implored to heed the sounds.

Despite your declaration to address the decades-old impasse on the Gukurahundi atrocities, basically, you are yet to put shoulder to the wheel on your promise. With all due respect, you appeared mercurial when you threw chiefs at the deep end of the atrocities raging saga.

Yet, chiefs do not have the mandate to deliberate on State clampdowns. Considering the gravity of the resultant deaths, methinks roping in chiefs, under the guise that they are the custodians of culture and traditions, shows a stern and unrepentant attitude.

It could have been thoughtful had you allocated the money towards the atonement of these long stalled State-sanctioned brutalities. Meanwhile, it will be credited as your good deed of the year if you were to rescind your decision to embroil chiefs in these bloody controversies.

Your Excellency, at the imminent risk of appearing to be superstitious, methinks your predecessor, the deposed late former President Robert Mugabe sworn some incantations on you.

He must have muttered vile spells. Your priorities are seemingly desultory, if not jinxed.

As I see it, you are hamstrung. It is my earnest prayer that the next time you visit a church, as per your penchant, providence ushers you to the amen corner. It is imperative that you receive invocations, else your Presidency is destined to be a sad sack dispensation.