Tanonoka Joseph Whande: Tsvangirai is a more dangerous leader than Mugabe

According to Whande Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai right is a more dangerous leader than the Iranian President And President Mugabe

Exiled former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation news reporter Joseph Tanonoka Whande is relishing every minute of his asylum in neighbouring Botswana to demonstrate the skills he learned as a Zanu PF spin doctor to apportion blame for everything that is not going right for him on the MDC-T.

From 1984 to 1988 Whande and the ZBC news crew of Zanu PF apologists Judith Makwanya, Reuben Barwe, Makhosini Hlongwane and Supa Mandiwanzira to name but a few fell over each other in a stampede to demonstrate their adulation of Zanu PF and its octogenarian ruler Robert Mugabe.

In response to this hero worshipping by his loyal subjects President Mugabe embarked on a road to the destruction of our country and as his name implies Tanonoka belatedly decided to leave the praise singing choir at ZBC and join the privately owned print media houses in Zimbabwe.

Aware of the negative consequences the skills Whande had acquired at the State owned Broadcaster had to discredit the government propaganda through his publications in privately owned media, the State wasted no time in haunting him out of Zimbabwe.

Aware of his weaknesses all the state did was send word to Whande through his nephew that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) was on his trails.

And when he ignored the threat and wrote that Mugabe was no better than Joshua Nkomo as a political leader the CIO pounced on him, interrogated him for 5hours and released him with the threat that should he ever compare President Mugabe or his wife Grace to any other leader in his writings they would take him in for treason.

Whande chickened out of the struggle and beat a hasty retreat into exile in Botswana where he has remained to date having endured the ordeal of staying in a Botswana refugee holding camp at Francistown for 6 months while his application for refugee status was being considered.

From the ordeal at the hands of CIO interrogators Whande decided to use his journalistic talents to get back at Zanu PF and the Zimbabwe government that had harassed him into seeking refugee status after his country had claimed liberation from colonial rule.

When the MDC came on the political turf in September 1999 and partnered by the ZCTU and NCA managed to lead the defeat of the 2000 Constitutional referendum and performed exceptionally well in the 2000 elections Whande was quick to identify with the party’s ideals in his writings against the Zanu PF regimes.

He continued to do so and made unsuspecting Zimbabweans think he was a true democrat and MDC activist until in 2009 when he officially announced he had become disillusioned by the MDC-T’s decision to take up a seat in a coalition government with Zanu PF and MDC-M.

Like many other Zimbabweans who expected a complete handover of power from Zanu PF to the MDC-T following the defeat of Zanu PF at the March 2008 harmonised polls he could not come to terms with the fact that the unplanned for coalition government had left Zanu PF with a significant and in many instances overriding power in government.

He decided it was time for him to turn the dagger against the MDC-T and not the underwriters and guarantours of the coalition government.
His latest installment on SW Radio Africa’s Heart of the matter is a case in point where Whande is abusing journalistic privilege and abundance of media space he enjoys to whip emotions against the MDC-T.

The sad thing is that SW Radio Africa did not find it proper to balance Whande’s noxious propaganda with views from the MDC-T information department and published the misleading views expressed by Whande as if they were fact when they are nothing but an attempt by Whande to get back at the party he believes to have failed him by joining the coalition government in Zimbabwe.

“The MDC invited mosquitoes to cure malaria,” he ranted using the spin skills he learned at ZBC to turn around an effective phrase the party had used in defining the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent official visit to Zimbabwe.
“Even if I were to believe that what the MDC did last year was for the good of the nation’- which of course Whande has said he did not believe- ‘current events on the ground prove that joining Mugabe and hoping to rule democracy with him was a big mistake,” he concluded with finality of authority on the matter.

But his conclusion is at variance with the majority opinion pervading the country which suggests that the decision by the MDC to join the coalition government provided a welcome respite to political vandalism and has dramatically improved economic and social well-being of most common citizens.

“The MDC is busy making their seats in government as cosy as possible; they are in it for the long run,” he continued without providing a shred of evidence as to how they are doing so and contrary to persistent demands by the MDC that the GPA be fully implemented and followed by elections early next year.

These are issues that needed to be balanced but sadly were let to pass as fact by SW Radio Africa.

Whande’s view that the MD’s failure to realise that they have pulled a wet blanket over its supporters and none supporters alike who are all suffering a bad cold is nothing short of ignoramus political mischief.

On the contrary most people in Zimbabwe are feeling a lot warmer under the wet coalition government blanket the MDC has pulled as a buffer between the rocky earth and glazier Zanu PF had thrown them.

Equally misinformed on the part of Mr. Whande is the belief that MDC joined the coalition government with Zanu in the erroneous belief that by joining President Mugabe after his onslaught on democracy they could reform him into a democrat.

Nothing can be further from the truth than that. The MDC-T has never minced its words about its displeasure at the supplanting of its 2008 harmonised electoral victory with a negotiated political settlement that the GNU was, is and will forever be.

The MDC President was recently on record telling the nation how difficult it was for his party to arrive at the decision and even thereafter defend it. Whande is either ignorant about that or is simply being mischievous by suggesting that the MDC had it easy in deciding to join the government because of as he puts it “the MDC’s greed and desire to be in government.”

What was evident was that after winning all segments of the 2008 harmonised elections the Zimbabwe Military connived with Zanu PF and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to unilaterally dismiss the victory and the unarmed MDC grassroots had no answer to the military might that Zanu PF unleashed on them to abandon their claim to victory.

The MDC leadership realised this shortcoming on the part of their political formation and lobbied the international community for support but the best they could get from that getaway was the compulsion to enter into a Sadc mediated negotiated settlement or be completely dumped into political irrelevance by the military might that had intervened in support of the defeated Zanu PF party.

Whande and his “bright” yet purely academic ideas that were unpragmatic against military intervention was nowhere in sight to advise the MDC on what to do to counter the Zanu PF military strategy and the MDC leadership rightfully settled for the negotiated settlement to salvage whatever little could be salvaged of its electoral victory that had been nullified by the militancy.

Surely that cannot be termed greed or erroneous belief by any measure of a reasonable person.

MDC joined the coalition government to consolidate its electoral gains and work out a peaceful strategy of asserting itself as the people’s choice for a ruling party without subjecting the very same people to Zanu PF scripted physical, psychological and economic brutality.

Whether or not the strategy has worked or will eventually work in the party’s favour remains to be seen when we come to the planned foreclosure of the coalition government through the holding of the agreed to elections following the constitutional reform initiative that the coalition agreed to.

What is evident to the party at present is that it is gaining political ground over Zanu PF strategies that hitherto prevented it to ascent to power.

Whande might not like the pace at which the coalition decision is helping the party realise its objective of wrestling power from and certainly not reforming Zanu PF and its leader but what does it matter because he has never really helped the party attain any of its objectives anywhere as first he was a Zanu PF and Mugabe propagandist at ZBC and when he tried to turn against the party he did not stand courageously in defence of his convictions but cowardly skipped into exile.

The very issues that Whande considers are peripheral to the nation’s urgent needs are core political issues that will enable the government to focus on national needs in unison but Whande being the armature armchair political analyst he has portrayed himself to be does not see that and must be pardoned for that.

If there is political squabbling in the coalition government and there is no unity of purpose as he accurately observes what then justifies Whande’s irrational accusation on the MDC as having invited the mosquito to treat malaria?

It is not true that Prime Minister Tsvangirai invited Manfred Nowak to study human rights in Zimbabwe but rather that the premier had no objection to a United nations request to visit the country to assess the human rights environment prevailing following his Western nations visit to open dialogue aimed at mending the country’s broken ties with the Western Nations.

The UN request was made to President Mugabe as Head of State and he initially consented as he wanted to use the occasion to push for the lifting of targeted sanctions against his party stalwarts but when it became evident that the UN emissary would not miss the numerous violations of human rights that were perpetuating Mugabe made a volte face and cancelled the mission when the UN envoy was already in transit and in South Africa to be exact,

The envoy made frantic efforts to be allowed to complete his mission and one such effort was to contact the Premier’s office which reiterated that it had no objection to his visit.

When he arrived at Harare Airport the UN envoy was detained and deported at the behest of the Head of State who had rescinded his earlier consent for the visit and not the Premier.

The point here is that it is not helpful for Whande to spin the unfortunate event to emphasise a point he intends to sell that the Premier is powerless when it is clear that the Premier is not the Head of State and has never claimed to be one but is a key figure in advising the Head of State on what to do to restore the country into the international fold and if the President refuses the advice the desired objective may fail to materialize as happened after the failed Nowak visit.

Indeed President Mugabe invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to open the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair without consulting other coalition government principals as agreed in Constitutional Amendment No 19.

The MDC-T responded by not only boycotting the Iranian President’s official itenary but by also highlighting its folly and possible side effects to the country’s initiative towards mending broken bridges with Western countries who are at loggerheads with Iran.

To reduce the importance of the MDC-T’s political stance in defense of a nationally agreed international re-integration initiative to a “lover’s spat” as Whande did is o show how naïve he is.

It is not the MDC-T alone that wants relations with the Western nations to be revived but the entire nation and more particularly President Mugabe and his sanctioned Zanu PF leadership.

That is why the loudest demands and cries for the lifting are from Zanu PF. If the Western countries are at loggerheads with Iran and they realise that Iran can access their economies through its friendship with Zimbabwe how likely are they to warm up to Zimbabwe’s gestures for revival of broken ties with the?

Oblivious of these possible negative consequences of the country’s association with Iran simpleton proposal by Whande are to accuse the MDC0f obscene deceit.

“The MDC is in bed with a dictator called Mugabe and when Mugabe jumps into bed with another dictator, the MDC is so jealousy they call it a colossal scandal.
This is obscene and deceitful. The MDC is more in cohorts with Mugabe, not the Iranian president,” ranted Whande

But how likely is Tsvangirai’s party “hobnobbing with dubious political leaders” to “confirm stereotypes that we are a banana republic”.

Whande’s answer is;
“Well, aren’t we a banana republic, and all thanks to the MDC?
It is the MDC that is hobnobbing with dubious political leaders like Mugabe.”

What a naïve appreciation of the consequences to national priorities by one who accuses others of wasting time squabbling on peripheral issues!

The trivia that followed about Tsvangirai failing to remain in the country to make his point confirms that it is not fair to allow some views by Whande and those of his ilk to pass without counterbalancing opinions of others from the parties they criticize.

Tsvangirai has made his point and left President Mugabe to entertain his guest without restraint and when the time comes for the government to answer for its association with Iran the Premier has his alibi.

The attendance by some MDC officials in Government to government ceremonies presided by the President that require their endorsement must be separated from principled political stands in support of agreed to national initiatives that could be put at risk by careless political grandstanding like the act of inviting Iranian President to Zimbabwe at a time the country is seeking the hand of friendship from Iran’s sworn enemies.

If indeed it is only Mugabe who has power as Whande suggest then why bother and fume about the boycott by nonentities as he does?

The truth is that people like Whande are loudmouthed weaklings who think the MDC is some other people other than them who must stand up to Mugabe and Zanu PF’s tyranny.
The myopic views they hold instruct them to conclude albeit wrongfully that if MDC were to pull out of the coalition government the solution to real problems they face will somehow materialize.

They ask silly questions like;
“What are they doing in Mugabe’s government? What justification do they have in criticizing government policy debated and agreed to in Cabinet? And, if no such agreements exist in Cabinet, what is the MDC doing in both cabinet and government?”

The answer is that the MDC is in government to ensure that the country restores democracy without unnecessary bloodshed so that when next people are asked to choose their leaders they do so freely and hopefully their choices will be allowed to govern with the support of Zimbabwean citizens and the international community.

To do so they do not need Mugabe or Zanu PF support but rather the support of the critical mass of the Zimbabwean grassroots which is ever swelling in the party’s favour and oiling its impetus and resolve to win the struggle it has embarked on 10 years ago.

If there was no approval of the course of action the party has embarked on it would have long ago aborted or redefined its roadmap as it has done whenever the party was confronted with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

If the in his opinion MDC is now playing more dangerous games than Zanu PF Whande has two options namely to form his party or join others that are not dangerous for him.

Alternatively he can stick to his current course of blaming the MDC for whatever has gone wrong to the country or to his own person in the safety of Botswana enclaves using whatever media space he gets and spoil or delay the relentless march towards a change in government in the country.

The choice is his alone to make.

Kasukuwere headstrong and dogmatic about indigenisation

Minister Kasukuwere must know that we will not buy into phony empowerment projects from Zanu PF unless the party cleans its past acts of dis-empowerment

Youth Indigenisation Empowerment and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has dominated media space on Zimbabwe during the first quarter of the year following the Gazetting of the controversial Empowerment regulations that require foreign owned entities worth $500 000.00 and above to surrender 51% of their investment for free takeover by indigenous or more appropriately Zanu PF networked Black Zimbabweans.

Despite the numerous and vociferous opposition to the potentially damaging manner in which the Minister proposes to expropriate majority ownership in foreign owned companies for free donation to the so called Indigenous people he has remained headstrong and at face value unwilling to accommodate wise Counsel on the potential Empowerment rules had for setting the economic turnaround objective backwards by a decade.
But we all know that the bad law that the Minister has crafted has got nothing to do with empowerment of the people the Minister says he intends to empower neither will it empower anyone as all the law will do is legalise pillaging and asset striping of foreign owned companies by the politically connected beneficiaries of free majority shareholding in the targeted companies.

We say this with so much conviction because we have lived long enough under Zanu PF misrule to know the party’s political treachery and be able to predict outcomes of each and every move the party makes with less than 1% margin of error in our predictions.

We have witnessed more than enough of Zanu PF pseudo empowerment initiatives that have spectacularly collapsed and fizzled into horrendous economic liabilities for the nation to trust the party in any matter that it spearheads as an empowerment initiative.

During the 2000 electioneering Kasukuwere and his Zanu PF party campaigned on the theme of empowerment and coined the infamous “The land is the economy and the economy is the land “slogan to whip support for empowerment through land expropriation via unplanned invasions of commercial farms.

The predominantly White owned commercial farmers were chased off farms they had lived and farmed on for decades and the Zanu PF supporters replaced them as the new farmers.

Agricultural productivity plummeted to abysmal levels and the country was transformed from a net exporter of agricultural produce to at best a net importer of national food requirements and at the worst a beggar for international food aid.

The new farmers were queuing with destitute at Government Social Services, International Donor Agencies, the Reserve Bank and the Grain Marketing Board for charity and or heavily subsidized handouts of not just food packs but also farm implements and cropping inputs like fuel, fertilizer and seed packs.

To date the same farmers who have been allocated and are occupying vast tracts of fertile agricultural lands are still whingeing about Finance Minister Hon Tendai Biti being the main obstacle in their way to accessing free government donations to enable them to farm the lands they have acquired.

How empowered are they if they are still unable to practice farming on freely acquired land? Do they have titled ownership of the lands they occupy and if not why not?

More importantly how have the fortuitous Zanu PF “farmers” moved forward the Black Empowerment Agenda that Kasukuwere is dogmatic about when the entire nation is now surviving on imported food while the farms they own lie forlorn and derelict?

The failed empowerment through land invasions has not given the Zanu PF leadership insight into what real empowerment is as they seem to have been encouraged or is it frustrated to redirect expropriation energies from the now valueless and derelict farms in the possession of party loyalists to foreign owned mines and companies.

They hope to realise better fortunes from these economic assets which will be managed by the minority foreign investors who on top of donating free ownership will have to endure the ridicule of earning the lesser of the company profits yet shoulder the major responsibility of financial resourcing of the companies to cover operational pre-requisites or face the real prospect of winding up as the new majority shareholders have neither the acumen nor the resources to shoulder 51% of the company operational requirements and liabilities.

Clearly the foreign investors are in a catch 22 position on their investments in Zimbabwe because if they decide to oblige with the Empowerment regulations and parcel out 51% of their investment they will still be burdened with the responsibility for organisation management and leadership as well as 100% of the working capitalisation of the companies or collapse as new partners are not being donated 51% of the liabilities but just the assets.

The irony of it all is that in 1996 Kasukuwere and his ruling Zanu PF party were given an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to Black Economic Empowerment when by far the largest and most profitable organisation in the country Old Mutual applied to demutualise.

The Zimbabwe Insurance Act [Chapter 24:07} section 15 reproduce here in full did not and still does not permit Mutual Societies to demutualise.
“15 Effect of registration and prohibition of registration as or conversion into a Company
(1) From the date of registration of a society in terms of this Part, such society shall be a body corporate by the name under which it is registered and shall, in its registered name, be capable of suing and being sued, acquiring property and disposing of it and, subject to its constitution and of this Act, of performing all such acts as bodies corporate may by law perform.
(2) Subject to section ninety-one, no society registered in terms of this Part shall register or be registered as a company in terms of the Companies Act [Chapter24:03].
(3) No society shall, after its registration in terms of this Part, convert itself into a company as defined in the Companies Act [Chapter 24:03].
Zanu PF with Minister Kasukuwere’s tacit consent not only issued Old Mutual with Cabinet Authority to demutualise and transfer the ownership of the Society from 98% of its ownership by Black policyholders to foreign ownership by Old Mutual PLC headquartered in London but also allowed it to be registered as a public company listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange using the term Mutual in its name despite the prohibition for the use of the term Mutual by Insurers and companies registered in terms of the Companies Act at section 20 0f the Insurance Act.

“20 Restriction of use of the word “mutual”
(1) No insurer, other than a society registered in terms of this Part, or an existing society awaiting the outcome of registration proceedings, including any review in terms of section seventy-one, shall operate under any name or title of which the word “mutual” is a part.
(2) An insurer who contravenes subsection (1)shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level six or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment.

Now the same Minister Kasukuwere expects us to take him seriously when he makes rules compelling the same Old Mutual PLC he allowed to buy us out of its shareholding using our accrued surpluses in its custody to donate back 51% of its equity to unspecified Black Zanu PF adherents.

If he was serious he would start by reversing the Executive order authorizing Old Mutual to demutualise as it was not only unlawful then but remains unlawful today as the Act of Parliament does not empower the Executive to make such decrees but Zanu PF used its majority in Parliament to condone the illegality by not challenging the Executive decree as they were supposed to.

Will 51% of Old Mutual today be restored to the policyholders that were bought out at its demutualization or other unspecified “Indigenous” Zimbabweans who have corruptly acquired wealth to buy the equity or are connected to Zanu PF to be able to gain preferential allotment without payment like what happened in the chaotic land reforms spearheaded by the party to the economic detriment of the country.

First Mutual followed suit and demutualised again with Zanu PF government approval in utter disregard of the law.

Who now owns First Mutual which was 100% indigenous owned as a Mutual Society and why is it still using Mutual in its name despite Section 20 of the Insurance Act prohibition?

Perhaps minister Kasukuwere has answers for these disempowerment initiatives of his party that will convince us that it now represents Black economic empowerment champions through transfer of ownership.

And while at it Minister Kasukuwere may as well address us on why foreign banks must donate 51% of their equity to us when no more than 5years back the Zanu PPF appointed Reserve Bank Governor wound up several Indigenous Banks, Asset Management Companies and Bureau De Changes and impounded their assets after haunting their owners into exile on charges that have never been successfully prosecuted in our courts.

It is myopic for Kasukuwere and Zanu PPF leadership to posture as champions of Black Economic Empowerment when all they are doing is project themselves as investment and economic scarecrows aware that after the next elections they will not be able to form a government and will not be answerable for the stunted economic growth the laws they are enacting will cause.

Zimbabwe needs leaders that act in the interest of its nationals well being and scaring away investors at a time when investor confidence was gaining momentum is not in anyone’s interest neither will it improve the political fortunes of the festering party that Zanu PF is today.

Biti got it wrong on purpose of amendment of Labour Act

MDC-T Secretary and Finance Minister Hon Tendai Biti has got it all wrong this time around in agitating for Labour laws and instutional reforms aimed at strengthening employers' dominance over workers in termination of employment contracts based on the problems he is facing in government attempts to retrench Air Zimbabwe workers without paying fair and meaningful severance packages to the employees who are clearly victims of successive management and Zanu PF government profligacy in the past two decades.

Workers are in for a huge disappointment if the Minister of Finance has been accurately quoted on the purpose of the current government initiative to amend the Labour Relations Act (LRA).

According to the Herald the MDC Secretary General and current Minister of Finance has indicated that the LRA is being amended to bring it into line with the prevailing economic environment in the country.

The Finance Minister disclosed that the current LRA is out of sync with the prevailing economic circumstances and is driving business into precarious positions where it is always the loser.

If he is to be believed then the MDC has all but abandoned its key worker constituency at a delicate moment in the history of the party.

According to the worker backed party’s Secretary General the LRA must be reviewed with the object of making it applicable to the private and public sectors.

In tandem with that it must be reviewed to give employers the flexibility and advantage in retrenchment initiatives.

Further the Act must be reviewed both in terms of the laws and the institutional framework to bring flexibility in the labour market that ensures salary and wage payments are within the capacity of the economy to sustain.

"Government will expedite the review of both labour laws and related institutional arrangements with a view to bringing flexibility to the labour market and ensuring that wage and salary payments are within the capacity of the economy," said Minister Biti.

Whatever drove him to the conclusions he announced we can rest assure the MDC Secretary General that he has embarked on a deadly crusade that will alienate his party from the key Worker grassroots that has made it the formidable force that it is today.

He may have his way with the intended changes to the LRA but the party will pay dearly in lost support from disenchanted workers who expected better from the worker based MDC than the Liberation movement based Zanu PF.

In current Zimbabwe the employers are at a massive advantage over employees in matters concerning the employment contract and the Minister’s view that they are to the contrary ever on the losing end is ill advised, elitist and devastating for the expectant workers.

"It is impossible to retrench and many companies are bankrupted because of that,” ranted Minister Biti oblivious of the political consequences of his misguided bleating.

Zimbabwe has an estimated 80% unemployment rate and no sane Minister would be expected to clamour for more layoffs of the few workers fortunate enough to have hung onto the scarce jobs available in the country at present.

Minister Biti must never forget whose interests he must represent and articulate in this government especially now that his esteemed position has opened a window for him to spend more time with the bourgeoisie than the workers and academics whose backing for him has been resolute over the past decade.

He will need them very shortly and they may not be willing to take the risk with him in charge of protecting their right to fair, secure and rewarding employment if he is of the view that they must be easily retrenched by powerful employers.

The workers want representatives in top government positions who protect their security of tenure in jobs and not retrenchment proponents.

They ask what fault they have committed to deserve being sacrificed and retrenched by companies they have selflessly served for decades that has persuaded the Finance Minister who is also the Secretary General of the political formation they have set up and defended in trying circumstances to side with the employers who have exploited them for decades and made millions out of their sweat.

By singling out Air Zimbabwe as an example of a company reeling under the inflexibility of the labour laws, Minister Biti has displayed the clouding effect of power.

Minister Biti is not telling us that the low level employees the Airline wants to lay off are responsible for the demise of the company.

It was the government and still is his government that is to blame for the malaise at Air Zimbabwe.

The government must pay for the recapitalization of the National Airline as it was the one that refused the company permission to charge competitive fares for political expediency of successive Zanu PF regimes.

Incompetent Air Zimbabwe General Managers were and are still appointed and retained by the government even when they report ruinous trading results.

Employee performance has not deteriorated at Air Zimbabwe in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Rather it is management performance in terms of financial and machinery capitalization that has regressed yet the Minister wants the employees and not the bosses of the Airline to take the cane through underfunded severance packages.

This kind of outrage must never be allowed to instruct formulation of our labour laws. If government cannot recapitalise the Airline with what it has pillaged from it over the past three decades it must allow the company to wind up and see the back of not just the innocent employees targeted for retrenchment but also the managers who allowed the company to fall into financial doldrums.

New and competitive entrepreneurs will gladly come in and fill the void that the folding of Air Zimbabwe will create in the aviation industry of the country.

The same employees the company wants to layoff will be re-employed because of their expertise in the aviation industry and will cost taxpayers nothing.

But as long as this government wants to continue abuse of the Airline facilities it must then be prepared to subsidise operational deficiencies as opposed to victimizing innocent workers through ill considered retrenchments.

Why is it difficult for Air Zimbabwe to justify its grounds for wanting to retrench the workers?

It is because they are executing a government directive which is not in tandem to operational requirements of the Airline in terms of staffing levels.

The company’s fleet of planes has been run down and never replaced even though each year provision was made for their depreciation and replacement.

Retrenchments would not replenish capitalization deficiencies in the company nor will they make it more attractive and competitive.

Why does the government not consider savings it would make from avoiding retrenchments to be channeled towards recapitalizing the company and making it competitive?

That is what the people of Zimbabwe want and not the laying off of the airline staff through cynical labour law changes to exonerate Government of its plunder and pillaging of the company in the past.

No Minister Biti the workers targeted for retrenchment at Air Zimbabwe are not the cause for its demise nor should they be at the receiving end of a severance settlement that condemns them to destitution after most have dedicated the majority of their working lives to the company.

The laws must be tightened to discourage wanton job losses and ensure companies double their efforts to stay afloat and avoid resorting to layoffs that exonerate them of liabilities towards welfare of employees in advanced ages nearing pensionable age.

The economic strain of destitution will cause more damage to the image of the country than the demise of Air Zimbabwe after it has paid retrenchment packages. While Air Zimbabwe has the option to work out a recovery plan with its current owners and employees to retrenchment there will be no option for the government’s responsibility for the welfare of the destitute retrenchees.

The current retrenchment laws are meant to discourage wanton retrenchment of employees at the slightest hint of economic inconveniency for employing organizations by requiring them first to institute retrenchment avoidance measures and involving affected workers in developing strategies to overcome retrenchment threats.

Where all these have been done without success the employer must then apply to the Labour Minister for approval of the retrenchment option regardless of it having the support or disapproval of the Workers Committees and or Trade Unions.

In cases where procedure has been followed to the letter the Minister has always approved the retrenchments but it is in State owned companies like ZBH, Municipalities and Air Zimbabwe where the political appointees run to politicians for authorization to retrench without following due process where the courts have rightfully refused to sanction the illegal retrenchments.
In typical Zanu PF reaction to failure in courts Minister Biti is now announcing that the MDC has joined the Zanu PF bandwagon of refusing to live by judgments from courts through circumventing them with reactionary law changes.

The seniority of Hon Biti both in the MDC and Government makes his statements more worrisome than if they had been said by any other.

The reason why most cases are not being finalized at the Labour Courts is because Minister Biti lacks emotional empathy and sympathy for the prejudiced employees who have been unlawfully laid off and fought for years in some cases decades to reverse the injustices they have been meted by unscrupulous and powerful employers.

If he had he would have long paid attention to numerous reports and recommendations from the courts to address the paralysis in the courts caused by migration to multi currency usage without guidance on what should happen to cases that occurred during the Zimdollar era that spilled into the Multicurrency era before resolution.

With his attitude that employers are always on the losing side in retrenchment cases it is not surprising why he has not been willing to order that courts must convert pre-multi currency claims to multi currency equivalents to the official Reserve Bank rate of exchange prevailing at the time the disputed separations occurred.

But the same employers he wrongly believes are now holding the losing end in severance package backed separations had access to the funds they denied the employees whose contracts they knew they had willfully and deliberately terminated unlawfully in the security of knowledge that even if they were to be ordered by the courts to reinstate or retrench by way of damages in lieu of illegal terminations the payments would amount to nothing after hyperinflation interventions are taken into account.

How Biti who has been so incisive in his assessment of issues troubling the country has failed to see through the smokescreen put up by employers that they are handicapped by stringent retrenchment laws from turning around companies is surprising.

It is a ruse that has absolutely no justification because the same employers have made substantive profits from the use of the same employees that they have invested elsewhere and are still yielding benefit to them but that they do not want to prop up institutions they have looted.

They would rather see the Minister dig his own political grave by confronting his key worker constituency with labour laws that endear him to the filthy rich employers who sucked wealth from the impoverished workers now being squarely burdened to pay the price for the looting by the employers through unjustified and easy to implement retrenchments.

Unless the review of the Labour Act improves the security of tenure in jobs by workers the MDC will invite protest votes against it in any future elections and that is political suicide the party can ill afford at a time when Zanu PF is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to reclaim the lost confidence of the workers in it.

Zimbabwe still to find its feet at 30

A torn Zimbabwe Flag flies over Zimbabwe House in Central London as evidence of how much we have progressed since gaining independence from colonial rule

By the time most of us turn 30 we will have made up our minds what sort of life we intend to lead.

Not so with Zimbabwe though as the country is still at crossroads in defining its destiny.

After waging a bitter war against colonisation and winning it with the advent of Independence on 18 April 1980 one would expect that the resolve and determination that drove us to fight for our liberation from foreign rule would have matured us into a homogeneous nation with a clear set of goals to guide us in our enterprise as a nation.

But alas, for one reason or another, issues that instructed us to take up arms against settler rule remain very much at the centre of our disunity and political acrimony.

It is common cause that we took up arms against colonialism because we felt severely prejudiced by the system of governance that favoured a minority of settlers with access all the country’s social, economic and political advantages while condemning the majority of us into servitude.

Ownership of all our means of production and the wealth distribution mechanism was at the centre of our struggle for liberation from settler rule.

The question then is to what extent has 30 years out of colonial subjugation moved us towards equitable ownership and distribution of the means of production and products and with what benefits to our social standing as a nation and at individual level.

The question demands that we analyse what constitutes the means of production that we felt we were being denied access to by the colonial system and the means by which we felt excluded.

We must be clear about how we intended to get our hands on the means of production and what we would do with our newly found possession.

The obvious first means of production we felt barred from by colonisation was land.

Not that we did not have somewhere to live but rather that we were condemned to live on state owned lands while the privileged minority settlers had unlimited access to titled ownership of whatever land they were interested in.

Unlimited because in the first instance they just laid claim to vast tracts of land they desired to own and if any indigenous people were resident on it the political system drove them off to make way for the new claimant.

The same political system would later be used to deliminate the country into privately and state owned estates conferred in title deeds that became executable assets in the event of disputes.

We fought the system not because we did not want private ownership of land to be extended but rather because we felt prejudiced by a system that only allowed one race to own land anywhere it chose but denied the majority race the same opportunity.

After 30 years of dismantling the system at the centre of preferential racial allotment of land we have now replaced the minority race preferential system with the majority race and political patronage preferential system for land allotment.

To be allocated land of choice in colonial Rhodesia one had to be White. Now to qualify for land allocation in independent Zimbabwe one has to belong to Zanu PF and be Black.

The racial colonial land allotment system has been supplanted by a racial and political patronage system.

With regard to the more crucial agro-land allotments where the colonial allotment system was savagely racist and added executable landlord status and value exclusively to the Whites we have now replaced that with an equally racially ruthless system that is premised on political patronage that has reduced land baron value statuses for settlers to the less glamorous state tenancy status.

All farmers are now settled on leased properties whose leases are none transferable and thus of no economic value as they are not possible of execution on in the event of a dispute.

Because of that, money lenders who used to accept title to land as collateral for borrowing to fund commercial agriculture are now reluctant to extend credit to the farmers as they will not be able to recover the loans from selling the properties in the event that borrowers fail to service their debts.

That has left the farmers clamouring for government financial support to fund commercial farming at a time when the government is in an economic quagmire and unable to raise necessary funds.

The result was for government to resort to printing money to finance the restless farmers. Hyper inflation set in and political turmoil increased for a regime that refused to heed advice on the best way to proceed in accommodating hitherto disadvantaged majority to access land as a means of production.

With poor funding agricultural productivity plummeted and the country is now more reliant on food handouts and imports from a point where it was the largest net exporter of food and agricultural outputs across the globe.

The confusion in what land tenure system we want for the country remains unresolved.

For most of us land ownership is only meaningful if it is titled and executable and thus has an economic value that can be risked to finance production.

As long as that ideal has not been achieved political strife around the land issue will remain firmly rooted in class struggles in our country.

Commercial land must be placed in the custody of private citizens and the risk of making it productive or lose the land squarely placed on land barons who must be at liberty to use land ownership as a means to access financial support.

The correct role for government to play is not to own land and lease it to farmers as this will only result in the tenants seeking intervention of the government in financing production which no government will be capable of sustaining.

Rather the government must know that by its very existence we are guaranteed ownership of land within our borders and all that is required is for the government to regulate what land is for what use and we will then compete to own and utilise the land for economic advantage.

The competition for ownership must be fair and the capable must be allowed to put land to best use for national advantage rather than for central government to involve itself in land distribution through issuance of leases when all it should do is demarcate boundaries of land for specific uses through the Department of Physical planning and leave local authorities and private owners to decide which land to buy and for what use they will apply it to realise value for their purchases.

As it is we are worse off in terms of land ownership than we were in colonial Rhodesia as now none of us owns any land and the government which has expropriated it is unable to finance its productive utilisation by its tenants.

The other issue that impelled us to militantly confront the colonial masters was the system of governance they had put in place that excluded us from participating in political activity and determination of our national leadership.

The colonial system excluded Blacks from voting in elections to choose the government. The current government has corrected that by allowing those of us willing to vote to do so but has replaced racial voting barriers put in place by the imperialists with its own subtle barriers that also exclude many of us from participating in national leadership selection.

Zimbabweans have numerous obstacles to surmount before they are entitled to vote in elections to choose the Legislature and Executive authority to run their political affairs.

First they are required to renounce presumed citizenship if they somehow have foreign sounding names. If not they have to be physically present in Zimbabwe to cast a vote.

And when eventually they do they have to suffer the humiliation of seeing their votes stolen by an electoral system that is rigged left right and centre in favour of a political establishment they have long lost faith in.

The bottom line is their vote counts for nothing as leadership is now the prerogative of the military to install and with support from SADC to retain.

The voting rights that so many of our gallant sons and daughters paid the penultimate price of life to attain is as meaningless today as it was during the colonial days when it was completely denied.

It can be argued that perhaps the colonial system that out rightly barred one man one vote was more honest than the current system that wastes scarce resources and invites votes that count for nothing in the final analysis.

We are far from realised the cherished goal of us determining who runs our political affairs.

Thirty years into our independence we are still legislating for our empowerment and one wonders what the triumph over colonialism was if it did not empower us to determine our destiny.

We want to take over companies without paying for them and hope we will be able to sustain the levels of empowerment they have conferred on those that worked and paid to nurture them.

That is myopic because we get them easy and we will lose them easily too. If not to other repossessions then to mismanagement caused by lack of appreciation of how hard it has been for the companies to be developed to their current enviable statuses.

There is nothing like empowerment through pillaging of other people’s possessions. Real empowerment is not measured in terms of what we raid and possess but on what we innovate and grow.

We can take over anything but as has been demonstrated by the land invasions we will not be able to sustain the acquisitions.

As we turn 30 maybe we will somehow acquire the wisdom that we already own everything that is Zimbabwe but we are just not capable of distributing the wealth among us equitably because of unbridled greed and corruption.

President Robert Mugabe and RBZ Governor Gono at the centre of Labour Court paralysis

President Mugabe and RBZ Governor Dr Gideon Gono created Labour Court determination paralysis that the MDC must now address in the interest of the prejudiced workers.

Elsewhere we publish the Herald story of a former Harare Municipal Accountant Tendai Kwenda who has through his lawyers attached 33 Council cars over a disputed severance payment.

As a result of the legal action Harare City Council could lose 33 trucks if its former chief accountant, Mr. Tendai Kwenda, goes ahead with a sale in execution to recover US$650 000 he claims the municipality owes him in unpaid salaries and benefits.

According to the Herald report, Mr. Kwenda was unprocedurally suspended from his job over the period December 2008 to January 2009.

He approached the High Court for redress and was awarded Z$3,1 septillion, which was to be paid by any legal tender, for the period his salary and benefits were withheld in pursuance of his illegal suspension.

Armed with that determination Mr. Kwenda demanded US$650 000 which is the equivalent of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe official foreign currency exchange rate between the US$ and the ZW$ that prevailed over the period the accountant was denied payment.

There is legal paralysis in Zimbabwe over settlement of labour disputes that arose during the Zimbabwe dollar era but were not settled and or spilled over into the current multi-currency era.

The Labour Court Senior President Mr. Andrew Mutema whose court is the final court of arbitration in labour disputes acknowledges the jurisprudence crisis within his courts caused by the migration from the ZW$ to multi currency usage.

He describes the crisis the court faces in awarding damages in ZW$ as being the equivalent of the court "giving workers stones to buy bread."

Yet he still maintains that in the absence of Supreme Court guidance on the matter of converting unpaid dues for former workers who lost their jobs illegally from invalidated ZW$ to other functional currencies his court’s hands were tied and would continue disposing cases in ZW$ denominations and leaving it up to the parties to agree on mutually acceptable conversion rates.

"It would have been better if there had been a precedent like a Supreme Court ruling that the workers be paid in forex, but there is none," Mr. Mutema told the Herald adding;

“It was up to companies and workers to agree on forex restitution.”

The absurdity of the Labour Court position in failing to convert pre multi currency dispute settlement awards to multi currency equivalent values is a manifestation of political controversies that underpin the hasty migration from the dysfunctional and worthless ZW$ to multi currencies without first agreeing on a legal framework to do so.

ZW$ savings by individuals and companies alike held in cash or bank accounts were rendered worthless for all and sundry overnight as a consequence of this migration.
Insurance policies and other liquid securities owned by individuals and companies were not sparred either.

But it was much harder and harsher for former workers who were denied access to salaries and benefits by illegal terminations and suspensions from uncouth and vindictive employers.

While the effects were the same to all affected Zimbabweans the illegally deprived former workers had no chance whatsoever to mitigate their losses by converting their withheld salaries and benefits into other assets that would hedge them against currency invalidity like land, buildings, plant and machinery whose values did not diminish as a result of currency migration.

It also boggles the mind why the Courts are unwilling to resort to the official exchange rates that were in use at the time of deprivation preferring rather to wait for the Supreme Court to give them directions.


If during the ZW$ era the State was able to source foreign goods and pay international obligations using a rate of exchange why can’t that rate apply in cases where employees were denied access to ZW$ payments illegally?

The Ministry of Labour is currently reviewing the main employment Act of the country and it is hoped that the Executive action will address this very critical area that has continued to disempower employees on whom an illegality was performed.

The dual punishment they are being currently subjected to is totally unjustified given that the country always had a rate on which it based its foreign transactions conversion for international trade and travel payments yet the courts are reluctant to apply the same to convert awards to employees who successfully challenge their illegal dismissals and or suspensions.

To add insult to injury the same courts give criminal employers the option to reinstate or constructively terminate contracts by way of damages in lieu of illegal terminations yet they fall short in determining the quantum of damages in a functional currency.

In all cases where labour disputes have been terminated in courts following an illegal termination the Labour Court has routinely ordered reinstatement of the employee or alternatively restitution by way of damages to be agreed between the parties failure of which either party was free to approach the courts for quantification of the damages.

The employers have persistently abused this clause in our laws to delay payments of damages until hyperinflation reduced their obligations to nothing rendering the employee’s recourse to the courts an exercise in futility.

Now that the hyperinflation armoury has been broken it appears the courts are doing their best to replace it by refusing to order restitution in functional currencies in the country.

The adherence to calculation of damages in lieu of wrongful, unprocedural and illegal termination of employment contracts is indicative of a legal system that is hamstrung by conservatism and irrelevant as an arbiter of dynamic and complex 21st century litigation demands.

There are many workers in the country who have been illegally punished and deserve restitution but if the country’s courts are to persistently award them restitution in a dysfunctional currency denomination like the Zimbabwe dollar, of what use are they to the aggrieved workers then?

The correct and uncontested position the courts should take is to award damages in a functional currency established through the use of the official exchange rate that prevailed at the time the law was vitiated.

It does not make sense for the courts to ask the parties to agree a conversion rate out of court when the very reason the parties would have approached the courts in the first place was because there was lack of consensus between them.

The thinking in the Labour Court is similar to a Police Officer telling an assaulted victim who reports the assailant to go back to the assailant and negotiate peace with the rogue.

President Mugabe believes that Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono is the best candidate for the job but the people who lost their entire life savings to his financial profligacy like all the 80% unemployed and the 100%investors who lost their lifetime investment will forever disagree with him.

All hope is not lost though.

The MDC-T must ensure that the employers who abused employees and vitiated employment contracts must be held accountable to pay restitution to their victims in functional currencies and the labour Act review provides them a good starting point.

Worker grabs 33 council cars

By Michael Chideme and Wenceslaus Murape
HARARE City Council could lose 33 trucks to its chief accountant, Mr Tendai Kwenda, who wants to attach the cars to recover US$650 000 he says the municipality owes him in unpaid salaries and benefits.

Mr Kwenda’s lawyer, Mr Joel Mambara, yesterday said he was working on the issue and the Deputy Sheriff of the High Court would soon be duly informed.

The High Court awarded the city chief accountant Z$3,1 septillion, which was to be paid by any legal tender, for the two months of December 2008 and January 2009 when he was unprocedurally suspended from work.

Mr Kwenda demanded US$650 000 arguing it tallied with the official exchange rate of the time.

The Labour Court — on its part — has said the payment of foreign currency awards to workers unprocedurally dismissed during the Zimbabwe dollar era would need a Supreme Court ruling.

Labour Court Senior President Mr Andrew Mutema said though giving the workers local currency was like "giving them stones to buy bread", they could not impose forex payments on companies.

"It would have been better if there had been a precedent like a Supreme Court ruling that the workers be paid in forex, but there is none," said Mr Mutema.

He said it was up to companies and workers to agree on forex restitution.

Management and Mr Kwenda reportedly agreed on a foreign currency package, but the municipality feels US$650 000 is too much.

Should Mr Kwenda have his way, city operations could greatly be compromised.

The vehicles earmarked for attachment include Mazda BT50 and Toyota trucks, all with 2,2-litre engine capacities.

Three of the vehicles have been attached with one already removed from council premises.

A public auction for the removed vehicle was stopped at the 11th hour when Mr Mambara said he wanted the matter resolved "amicably".

However, Mr Kwenda now says he is fed up with town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi, human resources director Mr Cainos Chingombe, chamber secretary Mrs Josephine Ncube, and the chief legal officer.

"I have never had faith in the management mandated to resolve this issue as they have exhausted my patience and willpower as they are waiting for some divine intervention," he said in his letter.

Mr Kwenda said scheduling more discussions was just "buying time".

At the weekend, Mr Mambara postponed the sale of the removed vehicle but warned that any further delays in settling the matter would result in instant disposal.

In a letter to a Mr F. Gumunyu at the Deputy Sheriff’s Office he said: "We are in the process of trying to resolve this matter amicably.

"In the circumstances, will you please suspend the sale of the attached motor vehicle scheduled on Saturday, 10 April 2010 until further notice from ourselves.

"If no meaningful progress is made in this matter, we shall insist on the removal and sale of the other motor vehicles you attached."

Chombo Chiyangwa unholy alliance

Phillip Chiyangwa and Ignatius Chombo both from President Mugabe, Mashonaland west province and Zanu PF appear to have been caught with hands in Harare Municipal coffers without authorisation and are pleading defamation instead of explaining what they were doing


Stung by mounting evidence linking him to monumental land acquisition scams and tolerance of corruption Local government Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo is on a warpath against his detractors.

The unpopular Zanu PF nominated Minister had become used to getting his way against elected Councils during the heydays of monolithic Zanu PF misrule.
He is stopping at nothing to turn tables against his MDC-T detractors now in charge of all urban councils where the Minister and his acolytes had free reign to plunder and pillage while the appointed Commissioners he paraded as the gatekeepers quacked in their pants at just the mention of the Minister’s involvement in any project.

This has all changed with the restoration of people elected Councils that the Minister is trying to dissuade from carrying out their electoral mandates through several well coordinated political interventions.

Minister Chombo is appointing loosing Zanu PF candidates as Special Interests Councillors in all authorities for which they stood for election and were rejected.

They are indeed Special Zanu PF Interest Councillors as they are specifically appointed to serve the purpose of Zanu PF spies into on goings in local authorities the party has lost control of to the MDC-T.

In Harare the Chombo appointed Special Zanu PF Interests Councillors have been working day and night to tarnish the image of the predominant MDC-T elected Councillors in a bid to outdo their counterparts in Chitungwiza who exposed corruption within the MDC –T dominated Council resulting in the Party severing its ties with the corrupt Councillors.

Instead of complimenting the MDC-T decisive action to root out corruption in local authorities by dissolving the corrupt Chitungwiza Council Minister Chombo gave them protection in return for them keeping a lead on Zanu PF corrupt land acquisitions in the Town.

In Harare the MDC-T Councillors have hogged the limelight in the Herald for their corrupt evictions of Municipal Tenants and occupation of properties.

What is evident though is that the Harare Council has embarked on an extensive Estate audit of its rented accommodation and discovered that most of its properties are being let to “ordinary” residents ahead of Council employees.

Rentals charged for these lucky tenants are sub economic as they are at staff incentive rates while the Council workers are charged exorbitant lodgers’ rentals by the same undeserving tenants who have somehow managed to secure Council properties ahead of Council employees.

By some coincidence the beneficiaries identify with Zanu PF thus creating a political conflict out of what should really be a routine employment matter between the Council and its employees.

It is common cause that Zanu PF has stuffed Harare City council ranks with its loyalists and they in turn have used insider knowledge to ensure relatives and friends were leased Council houses ahead of the more deserving Council employees recruited outside of Zanu PF structures.

In carrying out the Estate audits Council stumbled on eyebrow raising evidence of the acquisition of vast tracts of land and prime properties by senior Zanu PF functionaries.

Among the more prominent such beneficiaries were Phillip Chiyangwa, Sekesai Makwavarara, Dr Ignatius Chombo and Tendai Savanhu or companies owned by these Zanu PF luminaries.

The Cllr Warship Dumba led Estates audit unravelled glaring inconsistencies in the manner properties belonging to Council were acquired by mainly Zanu PF linked citizens and or their companies and produced a 58 page record of its findings for Council deliberations.

Before the document was tabled in council it was leaked to the Press which could not believe its fortunes given the information restrictions it works under and they dutifully made the findings public information.

Minister Chombo and Phillip Chiyangwa in particular were not amused and filed criminal defamation charges against the City Council Audit team and Mayor of Harare.

The police obliged and promptly arrested the eight Harare City Councillors involved in the Audit and the Mayor in a move many saw as an attempt to silence the investigation.

Unfortunately for them by the time they arrested the Councillors full Council had already debated the report and adopted it.

It was now due to be auctioned upon by the Council’s Executive Secretariat after verification of its accuracy.

Meanwhile Dr Chombo has set up his own Audit team to investigate reported evictions from Council properties.

The motivation behind Dr Chombo’s response to reported evictions are not difficult to see as he has been organising poorly attended protests to highlight the anomaly.

But similar accusations of corruption against Chitungwiza councillors from the
MDC-T have been conveniently neglected by DR Chombo who insists that he will not take any action against the Council until such time as the MDC-T provides him with evidence of the corruption that led it to fire the Councillors enmasse.

The question that remains unanswered is who has provided Dr Chombo with evidence of the Harare evictions to justify him setting up a special investigation team into the matter which he could not set up when the MDC-T publicly alerted him to the corruption in the Chitungwiza council.

It is also mind boggling why the police have arrested and are investigating the Harare councillors when they did not consider it proper to equally investigate alleged corruption in Chitungwiza by arresting the MDC –T dismissed Councillors.

Now that the police have decided to arrest the complainants in corruption allegations at Harare City Council how will that impact on confidence and will power of those tasked to investigate corruption in future?

The move by the police to respond to the criminal defamation complaint by Chiyangwa would be commendable if it was the norm rather than the exception it is.

The Councillors are not the problem here rather the alleged inconsistencies in transfer of properties belonging to the City to individuals is.

Councillors are there to protect council property from unprocedural privatisation by anyone and they should be given maximum law protection to freely investigate any Council transaction without fear of potential legal ramifications.

If as has unfortunately happened, Councillors are restricted by the fear of police incarceration after performance of public responsibilities, they are unlikely to perform their role to perfection.

As it turns out Council has now filed corruption reports against Minister Chombo, Phillip Chiyangwa and their acolytes named in the report.

Corruption being a more serious scourge than the defamation allegations, we expect the police to double their haste in arresting the accused and subjecting to the same scrutiny they subjected the Councillors.

Cast back to 1999/2000 when the same Chiyangwa got the entire First Mutual Life top management arrested for corruption and fiduciary impropriety and you will understand why Chombo and Chiyangwa have resorted to filing early reports to the police.

The idea is to cast aspersion in the police that they are innocent victims of any future accusations from a Council whose Councillors are countering criminal charges they have filed and must never be entertained if they report any case to the police.

Sure enough Council has been duped into reporting the case to the Police in the hope that Chombo and Chiyangwa together with accomplices named in the report will be arrested.

The likelihood of the arrest is remote and even if they should be arrested the likelihood of their successful prosecution has already been put in jeopardy by political meddling from the early stages in investigations.

Already there are those arguing that Council brought it upon themselves to be arrested by releasing its report to the press prematurely and thus creating grounds for suspects to claim criminal defamation.

That absurdity is only justifiable if police had established that there is evidence of factual manipulation by the Councillors to cast aspersions on the innocence of persons named in the report before arresting the councillors.

But no, the Police swiftly moved in to arrest the Councillors and are now investigating the matter while the Councillors are in their custody which is outrageous for a minor crime like defamation.

Chiyangwa’s defence that his acquisition of land from the city was all above board as he paid for the land by providing the city with cash to enable it to pay salaries and wages is indicative that the city’s tender procedures may have been vitiated in batter transactions with Chiyangwa.

Since when has local councils acquired special borrowing powers to approach private citizens other than banks to source working capital?

ANC Youth League’s Julius Malema an upstart popcorn politician

Popcorn minded scatter brain ANCYL political upstart Julius Malema

Julius Malema the Africa National Congress Youth League’s (ANCYL) paid old Zanu PF friends across the Limpopo a much desired solidarity visit recently.

While in Zimbabwe he revelled in the glare of political attention paid to him not just by supporters of his host party but also the international press and the MDC as well.

The controversial ANC upstart was overwhelmed and made the most of his visit to demonise the MDC and support Zanu PF’s dangerous policies.

It was the manner he identified with Zanu PF’s doomsday policies that made most of us pay attention to him.

Just like faeces deposited in the open attract flies Malema to us was a fly –the green bomber type –attracted to the stench that Zanu PF policies are in our beloved country.

We could not help but muse ourselves with him dragging the repute of the ANC to the pit latrine that Zanu PF is in Zimbabwe and in the eyes of many peace loving and democratic institutions the world over.

Malema’s visit allowed us rare insight into the democratic credentials underpinning today’s ANC and we were not impressed with the direction he intimated the party that produced freedom fighter icons like Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo is heading.

While in Zimbabwe another South African extremist and unrepentant racial supremacist Eugene Terreblanche was murdered diverting intensifying focus on Malema’s association with Zanu PF and his meeting with his political idol the octogenarian Zanu PF and Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

After lecturing his hosts on how to win democratic elections without resorting to violence and promising them support to remain visibly vigilant without being violent he went back to his country and gave a press briefing presumably to update his constituency and party leadership on the Zimbabwe visit.

At that briefing Malema was at his best passing disparaging verdicts on the MDC.

He was angered that the Zimbabwe party with the Parliament majority had passed some uncomplimentary remarks about his party’s show of solidarity with Zanu PF when at regional level the ANC as well as South African President was mediating in Zimbabwe on behalf of SADC.

He described the criticism directed at his ill timed visit as being of no consequence to his party’s relations with Zanu PF.

He accused the MDC of being a party of cowards that are good for nothing other than whining and whingeing from the comfort of luxurious South African offices in uptown Sandtown instead of back home in Zimbabwe.

In his own disparaging words Malema said;

“These popcorn and mushrooming political parties in Zimbabwe, they will never find friendship in us. They can insult us here from air conditioned offices of Sandton, we are unshaken. They must stop shouting at us.

They must go and fight for their battle in Zimbabwe and win. If they got ground and they are formed on the basis of solid ground in Zimbabwe why are they speaking in Sandton and not Mashonaland or Matabeleland?

There is nothing Sandton in Zimbabwe. There is everything about the Zimbabwean.
Let them go back and fight there.

Even when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom, and we have never spoken from exile.”

He was stopped by an interjection from an alert and smart BBC journalist Jonah Fisher who exposed Malema’s hypocrisy by remarking with disdainful cynicism- “You live in Sandton?”

Malema’s suspect temper popped like popcorn as he tore into the BBC scribe with venom intended to numb the BBC scribe into silence and show him that there was only one authority in the room and that was Malema.

The reporter would have none of that and laughed as Malema went ballistic. The exchanges that followed showed that Malema is nothing more than an intolerant demagogue or is it rather popcorn political upstart and are worth reproduction here.

“MALEMA: Let me tell you before you are tjatjarag (excitable) this is a building of a revolutionary party and you know nothing about the revolution.
FISHER: So they're not welcome in Sandton but you are?
MALEMA: Here you behave or else you jump.
FISHER: This is becoming a joke.
MALEMA: Don’t laugh!
Chief, (points at the back of the room), can you get security to remove this thingy.
If you are not going to behave, we are going to get security to take you out. This is not a newsroom this, this is a revolutionary house and you don’t come here with that white tendency, not here. You can do it somewhere else, not here.
If you have got a tendency of undermining blacks even where you work, you are in the wrong place. Here you are in the wrong place, and you can go out.
FISHER: But that’s rubbish!
MALEMA: You can go out … rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser – that is rubbish. That which you have covered in [your] clothes is rubbish, ok?

You are a small boy you can’t do anything. Go out … bastard! Go out! You bloody agent!

We cannot be allowed to be undermined in our own terrain, you can do that in your own offices, but here, once you come in here – this is not a playground, this is Luthuli House. It’s the headquarters of a revolutionary party which has liberated the people of South Africa.

Here, you come, you restrain yourself and behave in a manner that is befitting of being in the head quarters of the ANC. It’s not a beer-hall here, it’s not a drunk beer-hall – cheap beer-hall, this. And you ask anybody including political parties which tried to undermine this house what happened to them.

You can undermine all of us but not the house. Never undermine the house. When you are here, you are in a different terrain. You are in our space and you are going to behave in a manner that is befitting of being in the ANC office.

You don’t howl here especially when we speak and you behave like you are in an American press conference? This is not America, its Africa.

You must behave in an African way. If you are in Rome, you do as the Romans do. These things you write about us and insulting us, that is your space [and] you can do as you wish. We don’t have a problem with that and we have accepted that you are abusing that space [and] you are abusing us in that space.

You don’t come and abuse us in our own space, in our own house. This is my house and you will behave according to the rules of my house. We are not forcing anybody to be here. If you feel you are offended by the removal of this gentleman, you are most welcome to walk, you are free to go.

We don’t force anybody to come here. We would be worried if the SABC doesn’t come, but the rest of you to be honest, we really don’t care.

SABC is our own but the rest, its ok whether you come or you don’t come. We don’t have a problem.

And if you feel offended in solidarity with this gentleman, like the solidarity of other journalists who connived with a corrupt journalist which was exposed by the Youth League, you are again free to walk. The corridors are open.

Let’s not push each other to a point where we will have to engage each other differently because we are not going to be undermined by young boys and then we say ‘no, we need to restrain ourselves’.

When we are in the BBC studios you can pull us around and say whatever. You do that anyway when we have interviews with you. You just come in when we try to respond and you ask further questions … we never fight with you at that level, that’s your space. But here, my brother, you need to ask the South Africans – if you’re not – what the ANC is and what does the head quarters of the ANC mean to them.

So these are the headquarters of the ANC and we behave accordingly and like I said, if you fell offended, you can walk. There is no problem. And this is not a threat to media freedom. Media freedom without limitations and journalists just running amok and wanting to undermine us like that – we are human beings.

We are not going to be looted here and harassed by journalists. You can do that to the elders and not to us. We are the youth and we will act in a youthful manner, if you know what it means.

So that is how we will act on anybody that seeks to undermine us. The ANC is going to revive liberation movements all over Africa.”

Phew!

Malema’s hypocrisy, arrogance, ignorance, lies and short fuse are, to many Zimbabweans a mirror image of Robert Mugabe, Professor Jonathan Moyo, Joseph Chinotimba and the late Dr. Chenjerai Hunzvi packaged in one person.

Any ANC cadre or leader who tells the world that “when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom, and we have never spoken from exile,” is either ignorant of how the ANC freed South Africa from Apartheid rule or is simply being mischievous.

Equally for Malema to openly declare that the MDC is a party without grounding in Zimbabwe when the same party controls parliament and its leader defeated the Zanu PF Presidential candidate and Malema’s political idol in the March 2008 elections is nothing short of outright idiocy on the part of the declarent.

Malema’s rant that at the ANC Headquarters nobody must laugh or oppose him epitomizes the dysfunctional arrogance that underpinned and still underpins all African liberation movements when they ascended to power and embarked on destructive policies that left their countries in economic doldrums.

The first football world cup competition on the African continent was awarded to South Africa in recognition of the giant stride the country had taken in creating a multiracial, democratic and press friendly society from a past of destructive racial antagonism Malema is doing his best to revive at a very inappropriate moment in the country’s history.

The feeble attempt by the ANC main league to distance itself from Malema’s racially motivated rant is not adequate to pacify the global village the ANCYL loose cannon chairmen has offended and measures will be taken against the Party and country to stem out recurrence if the South African ruling party does not take measures commensurate with Malema’s offence.

On a more serious note the ANC must seriously review its mission if it intends avoiding the slide of the nation into economic abyss by pursuing Liberation politics in a liberated country where the need is for the party to focus on development politics aimed at improving quality of life of the impoverished African citizens.

As for Malema all we can tell him is that he is free to hold whatever opinions he holds about political parties in Zimbabwe but he must never fool himself into believing that his beliefs or views are sacrosanct lest he will pop out like popcorn when his hypocrisy is exposed.

Bishop Abel Muzorewa is dead

Portrait of the late Zimbabwe Rhodesia Premier Bishop Abel Tondekayi Muzorewa on Party regalia

Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa is no more. He passed away around 16.00 hours today Thursday 8 April 2010 at the age of 85.

Born on 14 April 1925 Bishop Muzorewa served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia following the agreement between the Rhodesia Front and the internally based UANC, ZUPO and Zanu Ndonga parties dubbed the Internal Settlement that ended with the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 that ushered the Independence of Zimbabwe.

A Methodist bishop and nationalist leader, he held political office in government for only a few months.

Muzorewa was the eldest son of a lay preacher's eight children and was educated at Old Umtali Methodist School near Mutare.

He became a school teacher at Mrewa between 1943 and 1947 before becoming a full time preacher at Mtoko between 1947 and 1949.

He was ordained as a priest in 1953 after studying theology at Old Umtali Biblical College (1949-1952). Muzorewa also ministered at Chiduku, near Rusape, as a pastor (1955-1958).

He went further to obtain M.A qualifications from the Christian Education Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee.

Later he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy and Religion from the Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in the United States.

In July 1963, he became Pastor of Old Umtali, and a year later, he was appointed National Director of the Christian Youth Movement and was seconded to the Christian Council. In 1966, he became Secretary of the Student Christian Movement. In 1968, Muzorewa was consecrated as Bishop of Rhodesia in the United Methodist Church at Masera in Botswana.

Reverend Canaan Banana teamed up with Bishop Abel Muzorewa to form the United African National Council (UANC) in opposition to the deal the unilateral Rhodesia Front (RF) government of Ian Smith and the British government that provided for a transition to majority rule in exchange for an end to sanctions against the government under the acronym NIBMAR (no independence before majority rule).

The proposed referendum to ratify the British/RF transition proposals was withdrawn and Muzorewa found himself a national leader and an international personality.

The exiled liberation movements Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) of Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) of Joshua Nkomo found political space under the UANC banner to carry out political activism.

Zanu split into two with the internal wing remaining loyal to Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole while the military wing in exile switched to Robert Mugabe’s leadership.

On 3 March 1978, Abel Muzorewa, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Chief Jeremiah Chirau and Ian Smith constituted themselves into an Executive Council that was mandated to govern the country until elections were held.

A new constitution reserving 10 seats in the Senate and 28 seats in the lower house of parliament for the White minority, as well as a quarter of the Cabinet positions was agreed upon and overwhelmingly supported by a Whites only electorate with 85% voting in favour.

Proposed elections were held and won by the UANC which installed Josiah Gumede as the President and Muzorewa the Premier.

Mugabe and Nkomo who were leading the militant wings engaged in the armed struggle to dislodge colonial rule denounced the arrangement and continued with the war effort.

The international community rejected the internal settlement for its exclusion of the exiled militant wings in the dispute settlement with the result that the war continued with even greator intensity.

The Muzorewa government raided the refugee camps in Nyadzonia and Chimoio in Mozambique which left thousands of refugees dead and maimed and when asked how he felt he said he was feeling great.

UN Security Council resolution 423 (1978) declaring illegal any internal settlement of the Southern Rhodesia, was passed at the behest of the exiled liberation parties.

The British government then staged the all parties Lancaster House conference from 10 September 1979, until 15 December 1979 to find a lasting solution to the guerilla war.

The conference chaired by the British Foreign Minister Lord Carrington, persuaded Muzorewa and his internal settlement partners to accept fresh elections, to be held in early 1980 which were won by Zanu PF led by Robert Mugabe who became the Premier while Reverend Canaan Banana was made Ceremonial President and Head of State.

Muzorewa’s UANC only secured an embarrassing 3 of the 80 seats in contest in the February 1980 elections.

Having tasted power Muzorewa unsuccessfully stood against Mugabe in the presidential election of 1995.

The Zimbabwean government then arrested Muzorewa on trumped up charges of conspiring against Mugabe with the for the South African government on 1 November.
Two days later Mugabe warned Ndabaningi Sithole and Joshua Nkomo against 'conspiring' against his government.

Muzorewa went on a hunger strike from 3 November to 11 November in protest of his political persecution at the hands of the Zanu PF regime.

On 21 June 2007 Muzorewa claimed that citizens, white and black alike, were coming to his house and pleading with him to run for president. He said Zimbabwe was, "bleeding, economically and socially and it was painful for him to listen to them pled with him.

He however did not contest the elections.

May his soul rest in peace.
And here is the rest of it.

Patrick Chinamasa and the Zanu PF chumps will never learn.

Leading Zanu PF moron Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa

Zanu PF chumps came into the open over the past week exposing the strain on the party of geriatrics from its untenable position in the coalition government.


Led by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa whose idiocy requires a full book to document the irrational gang within the party of geriatrics are kicking in any direction hoping they will find the mark and free Zanu PF from obligations in the GPA.

When it became apparent at the Maputo Sadc Troika meeting that the party’s procrastinations over implementing the provisions of Constitution Amendment No 19 or the GPA as many would like to retrogressively refer to it, were no longer possible to sustain, the party’s deadwood has resorted to some comical exercises to gain attention and divert public thinking into trivia.


The party line that there were no more outstanding issues from the GPA was quickly revised.

There was admission at the Party’s Politburo and Congress that there were unimplemented CA No 19 provisions that the party was unwilling to fulfill until the MDC-T fulfills “its obligations” under CA No 19.

For the first time the nation was told that it was the sole responsibility and obligation of the MDC-T in the coalition government to ensure that;

 Sanctions imposed against Zanu PF counterparts in government and Zanu PF leadership by the EU and the USA together with their allies were unconditionally lifted
 Exiled Radio Stations the party of geriatrics prefers to call Pirate radio stations were disbanded and barred from broadcasting into the to the country and
 Parallel government structures set up in the Premier’s office were dismantled.

Only then would the party of geriatrics be in a position to implement all the other provisions of the GPA it was unwilling to at that stage.
The issues gleaned from the GPA or more appropriately CA No 19 that remained unimplemented included;

 The swearing in of MDC-T’s nominee for Deputy Minister of Agriculture
 The appointment of Human Rights, Electoral, Media and Anticorruption Commissioners
 The proportionate sharing of provincial governorships among coalition parties
 The land audit
 The Constitutional reform process
 Agreement on appointments of the Attorney General and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor
 National Healing and reconciliation processes
 The proportionate sharing of Ambassadorial postings among coalition parties
 Programmed meeting of the National Security Council
 Retraining of security enforcement agencies
 Respect for national institutions and events process
 National youth training programme reviews and reforms
 Legislative agenda implementation
 Security of persons and prevention of violence initiatives
 Filling in of Electoral Vacancies
 Periodic reviews of coalition government implementation of agreements

For Zanu PF all these would only be addressed when and after MDC-T had delivered on the three issues it held dear in the agreement notwithstanding that there is nowhere in the GPA, Sadc resolutions or CA No 19 where their delivery was apportioned to that party.

Resolutions were passed by the Zanu PF Politburo and Congress barring its leadership from entering into any further dialogue with the MDC-T and MDC-M that would result in the party of geriatrics conceding ground on the outstanding issues unless and until the MDC-T in particular had lifted the sanctions imposed on Zanu PF leadership

The resolutions were to no avail as the SADC Troika meeting in Maputo had already decreed that the coalition parties were inextricably bound to honour agreements they had Constitutionalised through the passage of CA No 19 and they obliged by resuming dialogue that had been suspended when MDC-T announced a partial pull out of the Coalition agreement citing the slow pace in implementation of the agreement.

Meetings of the National Security Council that had been shelved were revived.
MDC nominated and government trained Ambassadors were posted to their agreed stations.

Constitutional review processes that had stalled started to roll again albeit with numerous obstacles being thrown in the way by Zanu PF.

Sensing danger that the resolutions were not holding the Party organised a youth League demonstration against the Premier wherein the party youths threatened unspecified action against the premier if he did not address the lifting of sanctions forthwith.

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti MP(Zanu PF) Mwenezi East East

In parliament Mwenezi East MP Kudakwashe Bhasikiti became the first Zanu PF chump to let frustration in the party out into the public domain when he introduced a motion urging the Premier to lead the lifting of sanctions crusade.

There was commotion in Parliament when MDC-T MP’s raucously objected to the motion and later retaliated by reviving a motion calling upon the President to cause the arrest and bringing to justice all perpetrators of electoral violence prior to the June 2008 sham Presidential runoff election.

The next chump was the Minister of Mines Obert Mpofu who tried everything possible to avoid appearing before the Parliamentary Mines portfolio committee to answer questions about the Marange diamonds mining anomalies only to capitulate after being threatened with contempt of Parliament charges.

When he eventually appeared he admitted having short circuited appointment of the boards of companies licensed to mine the germs at Marange and confirmed that members of the boards were reputed crooks.

That was embarrassing for Zanu PF even though the party is known to have lost all credibility and not to care about that.

Still Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri was tasked to damage control by refusing the portfolio committee access to the diamond fields on the frivolous argument that the gems were easy pickings for anyone who accessed the fields.

All he managed to do was to delay the inevitable because Parliament has separate and far reaching powers that hitherto it has not unleashed to show those that have become used to despising it their rightful places.

Parliament makes all the laws that all the arms of the government including the Chiefs, Police, Provincial Governors, Cabinet Ministers, Prime Ministers and Presidents must uphold and they do that by having free access to every nook and cradle of Zimbabwe to research governance concerns that require regulating.

Those that attempt to hinder or curtail Parliament’s liberties to exercise its functions of freely carrying out its independent investigative roles demanding that certain protocols are chumps that need to be put in their rightful places by being charged with contempt of Parliament and Police Commissioner General and Zanu PF imposed Manicaland Provincial Governor Christopher Mushowe are no exceptions to that.

They must be summoned to Parliament to answer by what authority they refused a properly constituted Parliamentary committee its right to enter and investigate the diamond mining concerns in Manicaland.

The Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo must show his teeth here and now to avoid setting a dangerous precedent where others will feel entitled to disregard Parliament and render it ineffective.

The Chiadzwa diamond mining embarrassment on Zanu PF produced another chump when Zanu PF Vice President John Nkomo waded in with the complaint that it took his party 3 decades to discover that the former British colonial masters had deliberately hidden information about Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth from indigenous people.

“Those that had colonised us had taken all the information and hidden it, everything that we had in terms of minerals was hidden and it is only now that records dating as far back as the 1800’s have been found that Zimbabwe has 32 types of mineral deposits and now we know that there are more. Let us exploit these resources to rebuild Africa. Why do we need an investor to come and mine gold? Why an investor to farm? Let us do it ourselves, that is why we are liberated. There is nothing like difficulties. These are challenges to make us think and not to rely on someone else,” Nkomo is reported by the Zambia Post as having told delegates at the Spatial Development Initiative meeting" at Victoria Falls recently.

With admissions like this who can then doubt that fortune surely favours fools?

Not to be outdone by the other chumps from his party Youth, Indigenization and empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere published controversial empowerment regulations binding the government without prior exhaustive consultations with its diverse stakeholders.

When it became apparent that his actions were damaging to the speedy recovery of the country’s ailing economy he sought to seek input on the controversial rules that compel foreign investors to donate 51% to indigenous people.

When he was granted the platform to explain his rationale for making such investor unfriendly regulations at a time the country needs foreign investment input the most he stormed out of the meeting accusing those he gone to seek help from of being chumps when the only chump was none other than himself.

Local Government Urban and Rural Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo who has been on a crusade to eliminate and or dilute MDC-T dominance in local authority management by accusing Councillors and Mayors elected from that party of gross incompetence is once again hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

After being notified by the MDC-T about the dismissal of the Chitungwiza Council on allegations of corruption the Minister who has been actively seeking the slightest hint to remove MDC-T Councillors and Mayors from office and replace them with his own appointees surprised the nation when he came out in full support of the continued stay in office of the corrupt Council.

It turned out the corrupt Councillors had been instrumental in facilitating the Minister’s corrupt acquisition of prime land in the town and their departure could leave his shady deals open to investigation and his public ridicule.

In nearby Harare it turned out that the Minister and the Zanu PF Commissioners he appointed had been corruptly parceling out land and prime properties to each other and high profile Zanu PF beneficiaries of the underhand and illegal dealings in Harare include among others Dr Ignatius Chombo, Tendai Savanhu, Sekai Makwavarara and Phillip Chiyangwa.

In a classical case of seeking exoneration by pointing in the other direction Minister Chombo recruited the chumps at the Herald to publish stories of MDC Councillors in Harare abusing their authority by evicting tenants and corruptly taking over ownership of the poor tenants’ homes.

The lies were immediately exposed when the Herald was forced to apologise to Councilor Wellington Chikombo of Ward 28 in Glen Norah for implicating him in shady housing deals falsely.

Meanwhile the chump that Phillip Chiyangwa is reported the council to the police in a bid to fend off investigations into his shady deals with former Harare city Zanu PF imposed commissions.

In Masvingo Zanu PF chumps grouped under the banner of War collaborators and staged a march in protest of what they claimed was Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s crime of inviting sanctions that claimed the lives of 500 000 Zimbabweans without providing a shred of evidence as to how sanctions killed such a massive number of people and how the Premier invited the sanctions.

The Daily News website reported that War Collaborators of Zimbabwe vice chairperson Josephine Gandiya demanded an apology from the Prime Minister for having caused the death of over 500 000 people.

“Experts have told us that the Prime Minister who invited the sanctions caused the death of over 500 000 people because these people died due to a shortage of drugs and outbreak of diseases as a result of sanctions”, Gandiya is reported as having told the marchers by the online publication.

“We are saying enough is enough we will one day confront the Prime Minister and cause physical harm on him.”

“We are prepared to follow some of us who died during the liberation struggle if the Prime Minister does not come in the open and condemn sanctions.

“Do not worry about our number because if you push us to the end we will harm you and we expect you not to cry”.

The police that is normally very efficient and proactive in arresting those that threaten the President has not moved an inch to interview Gandiya and her associates over these openly declared threats to injure the Premier.

Not that we expected any action at variance with condonotion from a police force led by the highly politically compromised Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri.

Zanu PF foot soldiers are immune to legal prosecution and have been like that for the past three decades.

“Anyone who says he fought during the war of liberation without mentioning war collaborators is a fool”.

“We killed people during the liberation and therefore we fought during that war” she reportedly ranted in front of Zanu PF imposed Masvingo Provincial Governor Titus Maluleke’s offices while under police protection.

These chumps are damaging not just to Zanu PF but the entire nation as it is the same pronouncements she is reiterating that convinced the USA, EU and their allies that the Zanu PF government in Zimbabwe had become a danger to the generality of the populace resulting in the imposition of the sanctions Gandiya ascribes to the Premier.

When the sanctions are extended in future we will not hesitate reminding this chump that it was because of her hate speech and unpunished threats to physically harm the Premier that has contributed to the decision to keep sanctions in place as a safety measure against harm to the Premier and his followers.

Zanu PF imposed Provincial Governors for Matabeleland South Angeline Masuku and Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Cain Mathema commute an average 240 kilometers each daily to and from work in chauffer driven government limousines they were allocated in addition to their unlawful appointment.

On average and when in pristine condition the limousines they use guzzle a litre of fuel for 12 kilometers they travel meaning the two Governors use approximately 40 litres of fuel daily costing the taxpayer US$41.20 daily and an astronomical $1352.00 per month in fuel to go to work alone.

Add to this the cost of wear and tear on the vehicle and salaries and subsistence allowances for their chauffer’s and escorts and the 2 Governors who are supposed to be resident Ministers in their provinces may easily be costing us $10000.00 per month to go to work alone.

This not an insignificant amount by any means in a country where a qualified Doctor earns no more than $400.00 per month.

The chumps ascribe their extravagance to sanctions.

What a load of rubbish.