Scrap-reinstate bonuses is a good-cop - bad-cop Mugabe trick

David Coltart believes Minister Chinamasa did not just "jump the gun" in announcing that the regime will scrap civil servants bonuses in 2015 and 2016, he did so to impress IMF and the World Bank officials.

"President Mugabe's announcement this weekend, whilst Chinamasa was in Washington doing his best to woo the same community, will elicit a profound sense of deja vu in the IMF and World Bank," said Mr Coltart.

"I have absolutely no doubt that Chinamasa timed his statement on bonuses to coincide with his visit - to show the IMF that the Zimbabwe government is serious about tackling government spending and debt. President Mugabe's statement will have driven a coach and horses through Chinamasa's attempt to get further international support for the government. Chinamasa will return from the IMF's spring meeting this past weekend in Washington not only with egg on his face, but with empty pockets too".

There is no doubt that the bonus issue has been a good-cop bad-cop game by the Zanu PF regime but clearly the plot is now getting very thick. For the benefit of Chinamasa's trip to Washington, he was allowed to announce the scrapping of the bonuses. Mugabe played along by saying nothing.

However after another year of bad news on the economic front and the future looking even grimmer than ever the regime desperately need some good news for Mugabe to announce on Independence Day. The regime could not think of any good news and so they decided to "manufacture" good news by playing the good-cop bad-cop dirty trick on the nation.

The bad-cop, Minister Chinamasa, announce the scrapping of the bonuses. Allow it to sink in and make sure the more militant Trade Union Leaders are given the space and coverage to rant and rave. And then with all the dramatic fanfare the good-cop, Mugabe, would public denounce the bad-cop with theatrical tears running down his cheeks and reinstate the bonuses.

Indeed, it is almost certain that both Mugabe and Chinamasa knew that that the IMF and WB would not be so easily fooled by this cheap gesture of scrapping of the bonuses since it would be too little too late even if the regime were, for the first time, to implement it. So the real main purpose of this smokes and mirrors double act was to manufacture good news for Mugabe.

After the public reprimand, Minister Chinamasa was paraded to the public with his tail tucked between his legs, walking sideways, with his head bowed low and his nose in his mouth in a posture of total submission. He then publicly apologized for "jumping the gun" in announcing the scrapping of the bonuses!

Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, was dispatched to publicly chastise the errant Minister Chinamasa further (making a mountain out of a mole hill) just to milk all the propaganda value out of the story!  

If anyone had taken Mugabe's popularity rating before he denounced Chinamasa and after then it would have shot from 10% to 80%! No doubt the militant Trade Union leaders are still drumming their chests like silverback gorillas, chuffed to bits at what they see as their great victory. It will take the rest of the year for them to realise that Mugabe did not give them anything they did not have already!

Last year Mugabe pulled off exactly the same dirty good-cop bad-cop trick on his Zanu PF Youth League members. They came to Harare, no doubt, itching for a fight because they helped the party rig the July 2013 elections on the understanding that they would be rewarded with jobs only to be forgotten and left to rot.

Mugabe knew the party was broke and had not bought enough food to feed the conference members. He stepped on the eve of the conference, forming at the mouth for dramatic effect, discarded the set agenda and speech and instead launched into torrent of verbal abuse of the other senior party leaders, especially the then party's Secretary of Administration, Didymus Mutasa, for failing to ensure there was plenty of food for the delegates. He there and then announced that he would personally donate cattle for meat, milk and sugar, etc.

The announcement had the same desired effect as Mark Anthony's after reading dead Julius Caesar's will to the crowd! The Youths promptly forgot all the grievances they had wanted to raise with Mugabe; they sang songs praising Mugabe, forgetting all their troubles. Their economic situation is even now than ever, the free party T-shirts they got during the 2013 elections are now tattered and torn and yet they would lynch anyone who dares criticizing Mugabe! Who have thought a piece of meat would such a soothing effect on these otherwise mindless thugs.

However the one thing that Mugabe has complete failed to hoodwink with his dirty good-cop bad-cop trickery is the economy.

"In his statement today Chinamasa speaks about a ballooning debt within the civil service (eg Premier Service Medical Aid contributions not being paid)," noted Coltart. "Government is failing to meet debt repayment undertakings, which he was hoping to address by not paying the bonus. He now has to source that money from elsewhere - but where is the question?"

The government must address the core problems of mismanagement and corruption that are fuelling the economic meltdown. Instead Mugabe's plan was to throw lots and lots of the money at the problem and thus "rig" economic recovery. Mugabe's $27 billion ZimAsset economic recovery plan is dead in the water because no donors have step up to bankroll the hare-brain scheme.

As long as Zanu-PF remains in power the economic meltdown will only get worse.

So far Mugabe has been able to fool some people all the time. Indeed he can even claim that his good-cop bad-cop tricks have fooled all the people some of the times. But the one thing he now has to learn is that even he cannot expect to fool all the people all the time!   
   
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Wilbert Mukori can be contacted at zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com