Professor Jonathan Moyo or his impostor?

Prof Jonathan Moyo

An article on Talk Zimbabwe allegedly by Professor Jonathan Moyo in which the writer takes the coalition to task over the Minister to task has left me dumbfounded and in doubt as to who the actual author.

I doubt it is Professor Moyo because such articles from him would normally find first accommodation in his favourite New Zimbabwe.com or the Herald but in this instance it is not reported on either of the two sites.

On the merits of the instalment, is the Prof taking the coalition to.. task over extravagance with donor funds or its neglect of ordinary people who continue to be dogged by livelihood questions or because its young Ministers have sold out by buying into the wrong and objectionable donor approach that is not transparent and is being done in a manner that can only succeed in weakening government structures under the weight of parallel initiatives.

Could it be that the Prof is concerned about factories remaining closed with no sign of when or how they will reopen or the lack of visible or concrete plans for winter cropping and yet the season has started.

Alternatively could he be concerned that Civil servants continue to receive a socialist allowance in which everyone gets US$100 with no indication as to when the coalition government will start paying salaries to its battered workers or the new mischief on the farms or is it rather that like-minded donors and their supporters are defining the rule of law to mean no legal enforcement of offer letters.

Is it the rise of incidents of unreported political violence because the victims now are Zanu PF supporters or the fact that he still finds his name among those targeted by the travel sanctions that he deems illegal?

Whatever his concerns are we must remind the Professor that in his 5 years as Mugabe’s advisor of first choice as Minister of Information and Publicity he and none other than him;

 Squandered more scarce foreign currency and taxpayer funds in more none transparent government weakening Musical Galas, Beauty pageants, Zanu PF political campaigns, womanising, and silencing political dissent in more plush hotels than the coalition government will ever spend at the numerous summits, ministerial dinners and this weekend's retreat in Victoria Falls. The Professor thus lacks the moral high ground on which to criticise the coalition government in that regard.

 Many of the factories he now complaints remain closed were run by Zimbabwean Entrepreneurs the Professor actively and vociferously chased away through his 100% local content and economic indigenisation without compensation fiasco. The others he personally shut down or bombed out of production.

Others that remain open like ZBH he deprived of experienced performers through retrenchment purges that were not funded and relegated the former workers to destitution or the bondage of economic refuge in the Diaspora. In the agricultural sector it was during his tenure of office that strategic grain reserves were wiped out and commercial farm operations ceased. How did that happen if he was such a meticulous planner as he now projects himself to be?
 During his tenure of office as Minister of Information and Publicity in which period he was the most vocal defender of government policies most of the Civil Servants were pauperised and many left their professions for menial jobs in other countries. Now they are trampling over each other to be re-engaged in their previous professions.

Does the Prof have an idea as to why that was the case at a time he was paying capitalistic wages that was commensurate with their rank?

Does the Professor have an explanation as to why the same Civil Servants are flocking back home and spending days on end seeking re-instatement into their former jobs at a time when the coalition government is only paying the so called socialistic wage of US$100 per month?

The reason is that the Civil service see more value in earning the socialistic stipend than the printed ZW$millions Professor Moyo supported government to pay them. Talk about an erudite Professor living in cloud cuckoo land!

 The mischief on farms is nothing new and can be traced right back into Professor Jonathan Moyo’s Office as Minister of information back then in 2001. Professor Moyo recruited musicians like Toilet Tambaoga, Brian Muteki, Simon Chimbetu, Andy Brown, Elliot Manyika and the Zimbabwe Republic Police yes the Zimbabwe Republic Police Band to sing songs in support of the mischief on farms then dubbed Land Acquisition and Redistribution Programme.

Prof Moyo voted in favour of the Constitutional amendments that allowed government to suspend property rights of the minority Commercial Farmers and have their farms expropriated by the state without compensation regardless of whether they bought or inherited the farms. That mischief has been ongoing for the past 10 years without Moyo uttering a single word against it.

Rather he actively participated in the mischief by personally expropriating a farm and encouraging “War Veterans to do likewise and settle haphazardly on the farms and disrupt productivity with impunity murder and theft. If Prof Moyo is only seeing the mischief side of the impunity now because there is a coalition government one wonders what he was seeing in 2002 when he expropriated a farm and its assets including crops he had not planted or tended.

The fact is that Prof Moyo is not concerned about farm mischief.

Infact he is concerned that the coalition government has roundly condemned the farm mischief and threatened to arrest the culprits who are using fraudulent offer letters to occupy and disrupt commercial agricultural activities of the few remaining productive yet racially by him and his Zanu PF racist acolytes detested commercial farmers of a particular race.

He makes no attempt to conceal his hatred when he alleges that “like-minded donors and their supporters are defining the rule of law to mean no legal enforcement of offer letters.”

 Since when has political violence become a concern of the Professor? He legislated for violence dealing with offensive Media houses and maintenance of Public order.

Assuming for once that there is ongoing violence against Zanu PF which is going unreported why is that the case? Was it not Prof Moyo who nurtured the culture of political intolerance of minority political views in the Police, Military, Central Intelligence, Prisons and Youth Militia services of the country that he is now highlighting?

When a Minister of information legislates against public criticism of the country’s President and labels such criticism a criminal act regardless of its accuracy simply because it in his opinion demeans the Presidential Office holder does such a Minister ever regain credibility to speak against refusal by anyone to listen to legitimate complaints from another abused by the system?

How many MDC members have been reported killed Zanu PF political thugs and what has Prof Moyo said about such murders? The fact of the matter is that Prof Moyo has absolutely no shred of evidence of political violence against Zanu PF thugs or he would have named the victims and their abusers without hesitation. His only concern is that the coalition government has delayed getting his name removed from the targeted travel sanctions list where it appears and thus presenting him a problem to access the funds he looted as a Minister.

We do not hesitate to remind Prof Moyo that in its 50 days of existence the coalition government has done more than what Moyo has done for Zimbabweans over the past 10 years first as a Constitutional Commission spokesman and thereafter as a Minister and Member of Parliament.

Everything he has touched has become a burden for the ordinary Zimbabwean and he does not represent their interests in whatever he opines.

For him to argue that anyone has sold out the peoples cause more than he has done is preposterous.

For Prof Moyo to argue that the claim that cabinet will use the Victoria Falls retreat to strategise on the recently launched Short Term Emergency Recovering Plan (STERP) is as unconvincing as the suggestion that the retreat will be used to come up with a roadmap for the coalition government's 100 days action plan leaves many of us wondering whether Prof Moyo is an academically certified Professor or not.

For if he was he would surely know the utility of the control loop in management in so far as continuous evaluative action must be engaged in to review progress towards planned objectives.

To describe such critical evaluative work as a “delinquent” argument from the coalition government reflects very badly on Prof Moyo’s academic competencies as well his understanding of practical application of what he learned about management if at all he did.

No wonder why the government in which he was a critical Minister failed to deliver on its promises. It never evaluated its progress and got completely lost as epitomised by the disconnection between Prof Moyo and reality on the ground.

Thank heavens he is not in government to influence it to follow his errand thought process.