Zimbabwe leadership dislocation?

On The ball: Right Honourable PM Morgan Tsvangirai could do with a little help from fence sitters in his Cabinet
Evidently the coalition government in Zimbabwe has caught the economically ravaged country’s polarised and socially disjointed populace unawares.

Despite the formation of the government taking 7 months to constitute, there is evidence that the political leadership and the generality of the populace is still in a state of limbo as to how to respond to the initiative.

The coalition government is such a dramatic shift from the benchmark government formation experiences in Independent Zimbabwe.

Because all established benchmarks have been significantly altered, most opinion leaders who were used to making fairly accurate predictive analyses of expected deliverables from government have been forced..

to pause and establish new benchmarks.

The reckless have already pronounced the coalition government still born while the opportunists have claimed the opposition mantle notwithstanding that they are neither formally or legally constituted as such nor are they practically equipped and capable of leading credible opposition to the coalition government.

Many others have been rendered irrelevant after failing to realise and gear themselves for the magnitude of change that a coalition government represented.

Yet others have been placed in insidious positions where they are not sure if they are in opposition to the coalition government or there is no coalition government for them to oppose or support. The same people in this category are equally in the lowest quartile of confidence in the coalition government.

The disjointed response to the coalition government is most pronounced in displaced Zimbabweans across the Global Village who are torn between settlement in countries they had sought refuge from political and economic abuse by the successive Zanu PF regimes.

Coalition Government Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu has not issued a single statement to give the nation and indication of what the government is up to despite numerous developments in the coalition government causing apprehension among the generality of the populace.

He is in leadership paralysis. If wasn’t he would by now have announced government policy in so far as it relates to the outstanding issues that nearly failed consummation of the Coalition Government.

The Nation wants to know the direction the coalition Government is taking on the appointment of Provincial Governors, the case of detained political and civic activists, the disputed appointment of the Reserve Bank Governor, Attorney General, Ambassadors, Commissioners and the unconstitutional increase of Ministers from 31 to 41 and Deputy Ministers from 15 to 20, the government vision on how to revive the economy and plans for the Constitution making process and its time frame.

They also desperately want to know the official government position in relation to opening of schools, rehabilitation of the Health delivery system, restoration of clean and safe water supplies, restoration of dependable electricity supplies and specifics of the official currency and the underlying monetary policies.

There are many others in media occupations and its customers who would be grateful to know the policies of the coalition government of freedom of expression.

Alas the Information Minister is conspicuous by his silence at a time the nation needs Government reassurances the most.

His Deputy Jameson Timba has shown awareness of the anxieties and indicated he will cause media reforms pronto. Will Shamu support him or not.

The Prime Minister has been on the ball since his appointment but his bloated team seems to be waiting for someone to prod them onto the field and we regret that by the time they do their captain will be worn out and overwhelmed by the portent opponents he has been tackling with the assistance of less than 5% of his team on the pitch.

Did Shamu canvass for the post of government spokesman to keep a lid on information dissemination or is he still waiting for the President to tell him what to tell the nation?

Attempting to mix water and oil is surely an exercise in futility.
As if Shamu’s dumbness is not enough void for the nation to ponder over, Information and Publicity Secretary George Charamba aka Nathaniel Manheru has recoiled into his shell by announcing he is now going to concentrate on the Arts pastime instead of the dissemination of information we pay him for.

The nation wants official government information dissemination to be boisterous and proactive. If those tasked with the role go into hibernation the nation cannot be faulted for concluding that they are in the coalition to circumvent it and must make way for patriots to execute the GPA mandates.

So far only the PM, Deputy PM Prof Mutambara, Finance Minister Tendai Biti, Information Communications Technology Minister Nelson Chamisa, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Information and Publicity Deputy Minister Jameson Timba, Education Minister David Coltart, Minister of State in the PM’s Office Sekayi Holland and Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi seem conscious of the need to carry the populace with them through the early reconstruction phase our country is going through.

Where are the rest of them? If the Information and Publicity Secretary goes to the Arts and his Minister remains dumb the chances are someone will step in to fill the void they create and it is not surprising that Tsvangirai, Mutambara, Biti, Mumbengegwi, Chamisa, Holland, Timba, Gono and Maridadi are gravitating towards that.

There are bound to be conflicting statements coming out of such diversity in Government information management which could undermine its shaky start which was beginning to gain momentum from the indefatigable efforts of the Prime Minister.

We believe the PM is being unnecessary overworked and must start prodding the fence-sitters among his bloated team to start earning their salaries by bucking up their ideas and putting themselves to national use.

Proper information management is an absolute pre-requisite for the coalition government to overcome residual resistance to its manifestation.

Professor Jonathan Moyo and Dr Simba Makoni have found political breathing space.

They are now the “vanguard of opposition politics” to the coalition regime. May the Lord Almighty have mercy on vandalised Zimbabweans!

Here are two academic supremacists Zanu PF rejects teaming up to present an opposition front to the policies they actively formulated nurtured and forcibly imposed upon us. What are we to expect from these perennial failures.

Absolutely nothing other than political hot air! Not then when they were in charge, not now when they are in splendid political isolation and irrelevance, maybe not ever if they do not embrace the changes engulfing them.

Their take is the coalition government has ballooned into a bloated bureaucracy of unimaginable proportions in our bankrupt country.

They are the architects of the bankruptcy in our country. For years in charge they actively created the bloated bureaucracy culture they now would like us to believe they are opposed to. It is totally incomprehensible from these morally bereft architects of the malaise the coalition government is grappling with.

This is not to say Zimbabweans are comfortable with the bloated bureaucracy at the top of the coalition government. Hell no. Merely that Moyo and Makoni have no moral fibre or capacity to defend the nation against structures they created in the first place.

They created the positions of Minister of State in the President’s Office and the Provincial Governorships that are now being exploited by their former colleagues to create unnecessary positions for unelectable and incompetent charlatans.

Prof Moyo went overboard by declaring the Cabinet Ministerial appointments by the three parties in the coalition government unsuitable.

He accurately observed that the Zanu PF leader had retained faith in the same people he had told the nation were the worst performers he had ever worked with and cannot be faulted on that.

But for him to single out the appointment of Tendai Biti and Roy Bennett by the MDC leader as inappropriate casts a long shadow over his objectivity.

He has already recklessly ranked the appointment of Biti in the category of “inappropriate” Finance Ministers Enos Nkala and lately Samuel Mumbengegwi.

He leaves us no option but to conclude that to his mind, other previous appointments to the Finance Ministry were appropriate and effective. This leads us to track them back and ask in what way?

Here they are all of them dismal failures Enos Nkala (1980-1983) Dr Tichaendepi Masaya (1984-1985) Dr Bernard Chidzero (1985-1995) Emmerson Mnangagwa acting (1995-1996) Dr Herbert Murerwa (1996-2000) Dr Simba Makoni (2000-2002)Dr Herbert Murerwa (August 2002 to February 2004) Dr Christopher Kureneri (February 2004-April 26, 2004)Herbert Murerwa (April 26, 2004 to February 6, 2007) Samuel Mumbengegwi (February 6, 2007- March 2008 Caretaker April 2008-December 2008) Patrick Chinamasa (January 2009-12 February 2009)

The worst of these were obviously Enos Nkala, Dr Makoni, Dr Kuruneri and Dr Mumbengegwi. To rank Biti in that category a week after his appointment is the most reckless type of political mischief exercised by Prof Moyo.

In tandem with that well developed trait of his Prof Moyo who is obsessed with attacking the Prime Minister described his assignment of Roy Bennett to deputize in the Ministry of Agriculture as a racially provocative inappropriate appointment. All because Bennett is a White Commercial farmer who was severely prejudiced by the chaotic Land reforms of 2001 that Prof Moyo celebrated in song and dance while Zanu PF hooligans racially murdered commercial farmers.

He lynched Professor Mutambara for assigning Coltart to the Ministry of Education because he is White and therefore incompetent to articulate national culture assigned to that Ministry.

But Zimbabwe is a multi cultural and racial society no single person is capable of articulating and promoting without participation of the custodians of the multi-cultures which is not beyond Coltart’s capability to effect.

It is this sort of myopic thinking that fooled him into the misguided 100% Zimbabwean component of electronic publishing which has denied the populace balanced media coverage to date.

Dr Simbarashe Mumbengegwi’s enthusiasm to move the coalition forward while commendable is rendered ineffective by his fixation in the past.

He seriously believes the removal of targeted sanctions is a pre-requisite for the success of the coalition government when it is not.

May we suggest that he focuses on what caused the sanctions to be imposed and attack that line as a means to appealing for the lifting of sanctions not the stupid appeals he has made and the Parliamentary motion from Zanu PF he obviously subscribes to.

All that is required of him is to denounce illegal detention of political competitors on trumped up political allegations, giving assurances that the country has turned a new leaf in its politics and will apply laws firmly and fairly at the same time it will respect fundamental human rights in the GPA and Constitution.

In addition to that he must define a foreign policy devoid of racial hatred with guarantees on Foreign investors’ property rights and corrupt free fair economic commission that does not compromise national sovereignty.

It will not move his cause a millimetre to lament sanctions in Parliament or anywhere he finds opportunity to do so when the causes for the punitive actions are there for everyone to see.

Illegal detentions of political opponents, unbridled racial discrimination, disrespect of legal orders, unjustified and illegal expansion of government structures, disrespect of written political agreements, media restrictions and generally deprivation of basic fundamental rights to the populace are what needs to be addressed for sanctions to fall away automatically.

And Madam Holland must know that she is there to serve Zimbabwe interests ahead of New Zealand interests. While efforts to sell the coalition government to sceptics are commendable there are too many Zimbabweans who are in the dark about this project.

She could do them a great service if she asserts herself on ZTV and ZBH media to tell them what she told the New Zealanders recently.

In that regard we cannot help but applaud Deputy Minister Jameson Timba for keeping his eyes on the ball and silencing the acerbic Nathaniel Manheru rabble rousing column. There is no need whatsoever for such hatred to be institutionalised in State media.

We can only urge him to move with speed to ensure the GPA clauses on media deregulation are realised. Credit for that will go to Minister Shamu and Zimbabweans at large.

What does Gono think he is doing accusing his principals of causing fiscal confusion as if he had created any such order in Zimbabwe?

After all the chaos he has caused which at face value appears to require US$5 billion to bridge if not more, how dare he disclose that a US$500 million line of credit should inhibit government efforts to secure the required US$5 billion or more.

In any event why was he silent about this line of credit and for what purpose did he intent to use it without the knowledge of his principals.

We shall take the liberty here and now to remind Dr Gono that he personally declared that he won’t stay in office a minute longer than it pleases his principal and his current Minister and Principal was not satisfied with him before arriving at the Ministry, is not impressed with him now he is in charge and yet he is still in office.

Biti should do the nation a favour and continue to refuse to accept to work with this moronic Governor of the Reserve bank who has become law unto himself in our country.

For 6 years he has systematically dismantled our economy and its time he must be stopped.

To Prof Mutambara we say sit on Dr Gono and make his unwanted stay as miserable as can be possible if he remains insolent. He is at the centre of our troubles and we will eulogise the day the economic scourge is uprooted from our midst. How can a custodian of monetary policy celebrate printing money as an economic policy and then blame nonexistent sanctions for hyper inflation and get away with that?

Dr Gono’s tenure at the Exchequer is the worst form of sanctions for ordinary Zimbabweans. Relieve us of the burden of carrying this excessively heavy burden.

The hue and cry over the blotted government must be put into perspective.

The excess baggage is not the recently appointed Ministers of State. No.

The real excess baggage in the coalition is the persons that wormed themselves into the coalition government after we had rejected them at the polls.

President -Robert Mugabe, Vice President- Joseph Msika, Deputy Prime Minister -Professor Arthur Mutambara, Minister of State President’s Office -John Nkomo, Minister of State Deputy Prime Minister’s Office-Gibson Sibanda, Minister of Justice –Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Industry and Commerce - Welshman Ncube, Regional Integration and International Trade- Priscilla Misihairambwi, Agriculture - Joseph Made, Foreign Affairs - Simbarashe Mumbengegwi Minister of State Prime Minister’s Office- Gordon Moyo Deputy Minister of Public Works — Aguy Georgias and to be appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture-Roy Bennett.

These are the 13names that have bloated the Government. They had to be accommodated after failing to contest elections or having contested elections and lost.

These are for all intends and purposes the people inappropriately appointed to Cabinet positions and certainly not Tendai Biti, David Coltart and the Zanu PF octogenarians who were appointed on account the people in their constituencies have faith in their abilities despite Mugabe’s thinking and assessment to the contrary.

Displeasure must be directed at Mugabe’s appointment after his infamous rejection at the March 2008 presidential polls.

It is President Mugabe who is, in the eyes of the Zimbabweans incompetent to lead them and not his appointees.

Let us learn for once to call a Spade a Spade.

And finally we must focus on the Prime Minister. His gingerly approach to the problems is what is required of all key men and women in this government.

We expect him to remain visible in every facet of our governance but we must at this early stage sound a warning to him that he must seriously consider asking his Functional Heads to take on responsibilities and become accountable for their portfolios.

It is not very encouraging that Kembo Mohadi, Giles Mutsekwa and Patrick Chinamasa have not said anything about detainees under their Ministries’ jurisdiction.

Equally disheartening is Advocate Matinenga and Paurina Mupariwa’s silence on burning issues pertaining to their Ministries where the greatest immediate positives can be derived by the government.