Zanu-PF insensitive to the plight of civil servants and the poor

The MDC Renewal Team notes with great concern the high level of incompetence by the Zanu-PF government in its management of the day to day affairs of the country, which has resulted in the worsening of the living conditions of the people's lives.

Of great concern to us is the government's failure to pay civil servants their annual bonuses on time. Despite promising that government workers would all be paid by end of December 2014, the government has failed to honour its pledge as most civil servants have not yet been paid.

It is disheartening that these civil servants were supposed to have received their bonuses in November 2014 to allow them spend time with their loved ones during the festive season, to prepare for their children going back to school in January 2015 and to support their families' preparations for the farming season.

All these hopes were dashed yet the same government has gobbled millions of dollars to pay for President Mugabe and his family to holiday in the Far East. As the country has faced one crisis after another, President Mugabe has been conspicuous by his absence and the country seems to be on autopilot and headed nowhere.

The way things are going, it will not be a surprise if the government stops paying civil servants their monthly salaries and it has become so bereft of ideas that it is planning to pay them in the form of maize from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

This is the same grain that the GMB has not paid to the farmers who delivered it to the parastatal last year. This level of incompetency is unacceptable in a modern society and the government must hang its head in shame. It has shown that it has neither the craft competency nor the craft literacy to run a modern economy as it has failed to present a credible plan to rescue the country.

Instead it is now diverting the people's attention and concentrating on personal factional fights in the ruling party while the President enjoys a month long undeserved luxurious holiday with his family in the Far East that is funded by the suffering public.

The criminal incompetency of Zanu-PF has shown that it does not care about the plight of the thousands of people whose lives are at risk due to the incessant rains which have resulted in floods in most parts of the country. Lives have been unnecessarily lost as the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) and other arms of government have shown that they are ill-equipped and have failed to respond on time to the flood victims, which has resulted in the death of over 10 people. The same ruling party has also fleeced over 15 000 desperate small scale farmers of their hard earned money through its bogus company Lasch Investments after claiming that it would provide them with agricultural inputs. The summer farming season is now underway and nothing has been availed to the farmers who will be forced to beg for food and other necessities.

This callous behaviour being exhibited by Zanu-PF is totally uncalled for and we fully demand that the government puts the lives of the people of Zimbabwe first. The approach of Zanu-PF of stealing and waging a war against the poor is unnecessary and retrogressive.

As the MDC Renewal Team, our policies are geared towards resuscitating the economy, creating decent jobs for the suffering people and providing basic social services for all Zimbabweans. We reiterate and recommit ourselves to the formation of a National Transitional Technical Council (NTTC) composed of highly competent technocrats whose mandate will be to turn around and stabilising the country's economy while creating conditions for free, fair and credible elections.