Zanu PF jobs galore claim, silly joke in sea of poverty
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Tags: 2017 Zimbabwe Coup, 2018 Zimbabwe Presidential Elections, General Constantino Chiwenga, poverty, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, ZANU-PF Violence
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“Clearly, finding real criminals is not as easy as throwing spikes on the roads, waylaying drivers at traffic intersections, and extorting random old lady drivers for money.”
Zimbabweans were excited to learn this week that President Emmerson Mnangagwa had created 60 000 new jobs since the start of the year just like the US$1 billion Mnangagwa claims to have brought in.
A massive search is now underway, nationwide, to determine these new jobs; just like people are struggling to identify Mnangagwa’s US16 billion foreign direct investment inflows he claims to have brought.
According to The Sunday Mail, figures from the National Social Security Authority suggest that job creation is rising, obviously on the back of Mnangagwa’s stellar and astute management of the economy in their view.
Thanks to state media’s repeated reporting, every Zimbabwean must by now surely know that our coup leader is a powerful magnet for foreign investment and funding. The investors are scrambling at his doors and security is struggling to keep them at bay. They are tumbling over each other desperate to come into Africa’s finest investment destination with 95% unemployment, collapsed infrastructure, dysfunctional service delivery systems, dirty cities and poor citizens. For some strange reason, Zimbabweans seem to be blind to all these new jobs being created for them. While Zanu PF is creating all these jobs, ordinary Zimbabweans are exhibiting strange behaviour by choosing to remain on the streets as vendors, loitering the whole day and some sleeping on empty stomachs.
People choose to sell nail cutters, rat poison, chicken livers and second-hand underwear instead of taking up these thousands of jobs that their benevolent government has so graciously availed since coming to power last November. What are these people still doing on the streets? Have they not read The Sunday Mail or The Herald? Do they not know that there are now jobs galore? Did they not read in The Herald that foreign investors are pouring billions of dollars into the country?
Day dreamers
Speaking of The Herald, MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa was surprised to learn from the paper this week that he had travelled to Dubai.
There, it was said by the paper, Chamisa held a meeting with former president Robert Mugabe, the fallen dictator The Herald used to hero-worship. We were told that the two held discussions on an election deal and even discussed a new cabinet in a Chamisa-led government.
What is most fascinating about this story is not that Chamisa travelled to Dubai. It is the fact that Chamisa travelled there without his knowledge. This is because, according to Chamisa, and his own social media posts, he had travelled to Israel on a personal tour, via Addis Ababa. But it now appears, seeing as The Herald is the one paper nobody can ever doubt, that somewhere in between that trip Chamisa went to Dubai, met Uncle Bob, speedily discussed names to put in a 20-member cabinet, and all that.
But there were more shocks for Chamisa. Not only did he discover that he had travelled without knowing it, it also turned out that he owned a business he was unaware of. The Herald helpfully revealed to Chamisa that he wasn’t a mere lawyer, but an entrepreneur who has “business links” with unidentified Mugabe.
Imagine Chamisa having to explain to his family how he hid an entire business from them all these years. We know Chamisa is a man of serious talent, including solving cash shortages in a week, but being in two places at one time and running a secret business seems even beyond him.
Mind games
Two people not celebrating this week are Douglas Musekiwa and John Zulu. The duo were arrested last week on suspicion of being involved in the White City Stadium bombing.
They were brought to court and, according to some witnesses, had difficulty walking. We have seen this before, haven’t we? We can only hope that this was not because the government, in a momentary lapse of concentration, had allowed its “New Dispensation” mask to fall.
The two were later released without charge, obviously because whoever had arrested them had done so with zero evidence. The old Mugabe-style repression of arresting to investigate. It turns out the two were kombi touts from Pumula. The police should just go out there and catch the real culprits. Let them show us that they can actually do their jobs.
Here is your chance to shine, ZRP. Do some real work, for a change if the military allows you to. Many people out there can see what’s going on here. We are closely following the tragic drama; someone must get to the bottom of this. Clearly, finding real criminals is not as easy as throwing spikes on the roads, waylaying drivers at traffic intersections, and extorting random old lady drivers for money.
Hogwash
The just-ended 31st Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit in Mauritania resolved that the continent should build strong institutions to fight corruption and share vital information relating to operations of graft syndicates.
Never one to miss an opportunity to bootlick Mnangagwa, The Herald came up with this gem: “the summit dovetailed with the thrust of President Mnangagwa’s new dispensation that declared zero tolerance to corruption.”
This claim by the state daily was exposed for the hogwash that it is by none other than former Energy minister Samuel Undenge. Undenge. Undenge, who appeared before magistrate Hosea Mujaya, was put to his defence after his application for discharge was dismissed last week pointed out that it was a mockery to arrest him for merely writing a letter for voluntary work, while corrupt elements who he described as “real criminals” were going scot-free.
The criminals Undenge was referring to are — surprise, surprise — in Mnangagwa’s office.
“The State witness Ray Ndhlukula (deputy chief secretary in the President’s Office) told court that he wrote a letter awarding a multi-million-dollar contract of public funds to Marry Chiwenga without going to tender. The said company was not even registered, this is clearly corruption, your worship . . . It’s a mockery to the public, your worship,” Undenge said.
So much for the claims that Mnangagwa is a paragon of virtue when such corrupt activities, not in a government ministry, but in his office. What stinking hypocrisy from a man who proclaims ad nauseam that he is now leading the country into a new dispensation.
Chiwenga’s myopic electioneering populism
You know election season is upon us when Zanu PF starts telling people not to pay their bills.
In 2013, Ignatius Chombo woke up and decided we should all live in the city for free, without paying rates. He ordered all debts to be cancelled. The City of Harare and many other urban councils have never recovered from that financial prejudice, hence service delivery nightmare. This past weekend, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga showed us how easily we all forget.
At a Zanu PF rally, the Vice-President said the City of Harare was failing to provide basic services, such as water, roads and refuse collection. This was happening while residents remained dedicated in paying their rates to council, he said.
That he was speaking in Hatcliffe, an area that is testament to his government’s utter failure on land planning, was completely lost on Chiwenga. There is no running water and there are essentially no roads to speak of. This is the sort of place where greedy politicians sink shallow wells and, Chinamasa-style, cut ribbons amid wild ululations from their desperate victims. Land barons, who Zanu PF pretends not to like, rule the settlements in the name of the ruling party. But let us thank Chiwenga. This is good news. If we must not pay the council because it is not providing services, we can as well not pay tax from the government until it starts delivering what we pay for.
Former Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo, an ex-friend of the retired General, tweeted over Chiwenga’s shocking utterances: “Old dispensation: Chombo scraps rates, pre-poll July 2013. New dispensation: Chiwenga says don’t pay rates, pre-poll July 2018. The book of the new dispensation is the old testament. Damn crooks!”
