First out o the kernels was the fattened Herald Political Editor Caesar ZvayiWhen dogs are unleashed they run around the homestead searching for the enemy.
They bark howl and growl at any moving object in sight and when they are echoed by other dogs in the neighbourhood they respond to failure to breach the homestead perimeter fence due to training with a growl that is normally termed shuramatongo (bad omen foretelling possible relocation of the homestead) in Shona.
That is what is happening within the Zanu PF propaganda machinery at state controlled media.
The formation of the coalition government and the modest fiscal discipline that has followed has exposed the Zanu PF sanctions myth to be a fallacy.
Inflation that had gone off radar due to sanctions has been turned into deflation for 3 consecutive months notwithstanding that the sanctions regime that Zanu PF has been wailing about is still very much in force.
The RBZ money printing press has been shut and the Zim-dollar has been made redundant by the policy shift from stringent forex controls to liberal usage of multiple foreign currencies
The Zanu PF sanctions propaganda has been disproved as empty retail outlets shelves have been restocked to the brim with all the basics that disappeared after the Junta waged a military onslaught on inflation which failed dismally.
Meanwhile the vanguard party has no other rallying point on which to fool the public except to claim credit for the economic stabilisation that followed the entry of the MDC into government.
As usual the better fed dogs will have more energy when the kernels are opened and the leashes undone.
That is why Herald Political Editor Caesar Zvayi, embarrassingly deported from Botswana in 2008 after seeking economic sanctuary from the country he despises as a haven of American imperialism after the Zanu PF regime he had supported unreservedly failed to mitigate his decline into destitution while working for the flagship State Publishing House, decided it was time to put political finesse to the argument for Dr Gono’s retention at the RBZ.
Dr Gono had made it possible, through quasi fiscal indulgences of the Central bank, for Zvayi to return straight back into his former job at promotional level on deportation from Botswana with improved conditions of service, including a state of the art Mercedes Benz, generous Housing and hygiene benefits for himself and family.
What better way to scratch his back now that the Governor was under siege than to stand up for him.
Zvayi went for brook and stated that lynching Dr Gono was a Barabbas type sell-out gospel by thankless beneficiaries of his ingenuity.
In his hate filled and scornful opinion article loaded with loathsome dismissal of the MDC involvement with governance of the country Zvayi let it all hang out for the RBZ Governor in his hour of need calling the clamouring for his dismissal a red herring.
“MDC-T is trying to reduce the so-called GPA to a document about firing and appointing people, and MDC and Zanu-PF, by agreeing to be strung along like little boys without minds of their own.
The so-called GPA, I say so-called because there is nothing global or solely political about it, is actually a broad-based diagnosis of the challenges facing Zimbabwe,” he lamented.
“It is, however, unforgivable that in a country facing so many challenges, including the indignity of having its President, the entire executive and well-trained professionals taking home a paltry US$100 living allowance, a politician worth his salt would want the whole nation to believe that hounding the RBZ Governor and Attorney General out of office, and politicising the civil service, are the major outstanding issues confronting Zimbabwe today?”added a clearly distraught Zvayi.
For obvious reasons he conveniently avoids telling us why a self respecting President would accept the US$100 per month pittance payment from the nation he has led to dizzy heights of economic prosperity over 3 decades of uninterrupted hegemony and more tellingly what the same president was paying his workers by the end of January 2009 before the MDC politician unworthy of his salt intervened with the US$100 monthly payment from nowhere.
According to Zvayi there are more serious considerations that should occupy the MDC Finance Minister’s time like “ruinous economic sanctions that have been condemned by progressive people the world over which continue to hamper the progress of the inclusive Government. And Biti himself is on record admitting this.”
There is also the question of “farmers who should by now be busy breaking the clod to give the nation winter wheat, but who are currently out on a limb wondering how they would get the crop into the ground given that the little savings they had were rendered worthless, when someone, without Cabinet authority opted to pronounce the death of the Zim-dollar when it is still transacting among the commuting public.”
And much more “we have pirate radio stations that continue spewing hate speech into Zimbabwe to foster political discord, foreign governments continuing to bankroll and host the pirate stations, with not even a whimper from some of the parties to the GPA.”
“We have foreigners who think they have a God-given right to direct the politics of our country yet Gono’s would-be executioners have never raised their tongues against such interference.
We have under-equipped hospitals, tottering schools, comatose universities, a depressed industrial sector, you name it, yet Gono, and Tomana, are being pushed as the outstanding issues confronting Zimbabwe today.
Yet the ‘‘crime’’ these men committed, would pale in comparison to the crimes of their accusers.
Men who not only consorted with outsiders to bring our country to near ruin but some of whom helped draft the ruinous US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, that they still refuse to condemn to this day.
The Accusers who compiled sanctions lists which they dutifully passed on to Western capitals.
Surely those are worse crimes than fighting the effects of those sanctions which Gono stands accused of doing. In fact, in their culpability, his accusers can’t even find it in their hearts to call a spade a spade where the sanctions are concerned, opting to call them ‘‘restrictive measures’’ or just ‘‘measures’’, as if they do not see the ruin the sanctions have wrought.
It is said those in glasshouses should not throw stones, for if others return fire, they would remain pamhene, pachena chaipo.”
Take that from Zvayi on behalf of the saintly RBZ Governor and the vanguard Party.
But are these not the very same issues that the Zanu PF regime has been focussed on for decades without much success other than the wiping out of the economic worth of Zimbabweans that caused the same writer to seek refuge in Botswana?
What makes Zvayi think if the current FM focuses on these issues he will realise different results from those realised by his Zanu PF heroes including Dr Gono the financial engineering genius he has taken gloves off for?
“Speaking of so-called quasi-fiscal activities, isn’t it ironic that the Westerners, who today gleefully push the anti-Gono agenda are themselves currently engaged in massive quasi-fiscal activities, bailing their corporations that are tottering on the brink of collapse after robbing the common man blind?
Gono did not rob anyone, but instead helped the common man keep body and soul together.
Talk of the farm mechanisation programme, the medical sector facility, the buses that we still use today, BACOSSI, FOLIWARS, PLARP, all those seemingly funny abbreviations that helped us keep our country afloat in the face of a decade of ruinous sanctions. And this is the man that some with bloodied hands believe should be launched.
Talk of the pot calling the kettle black?”
Indeed Mr Zvayi. The pot is you and the kettle is also none other than yourself. For how else can we define your thought processes?
You are the pot because you preach the heresy that sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe when in effect they were imposed on Zanu PF merchants of political violence, looters of private property and national treasure.
If the Zanu PF looters had not embarked on an unholy mission to dispossess political opponents of citizenship rights, property rights, legal rights, human dignity and the right to freely speak their minds and access information of their choice, political affiliation, the right to free economic indulgence and liberty to elect leaders of their choice in a violence free atmosphere what reason would have been advanced for the imposition of diabolic sanctions.
You are the kettle because you are saying the under siege Zimbabweans should have suffered Zanu PF impunity in silence because they were going to benefit from DR Gono’s quasi fiscal interventions in as much as Westerners are benefiting from quasi fiscal interventions by their governments which somehow reached you ears while they are being carried out in muted silence for fear of recrimination by citizens in those countries who were robbed blind and we presume raped, maimed, assaulted, tortured, assassinated, disenfranchised, denied food and unemployment benefits on political affiliation considerations and denied election results after voting against the rogue governments.
Zvayi’s ire with Finance Minister Tendai Biti over the hotly contested RBZ governor incumbency is exacerbated by the fact that he believes everyone benefited from Dr Gono’s quasi fiscal indulgences at the central bank that financed elections and bought the vehicles legislators are proudly driving not excluding himself of course.
He believes the quasi fiscal FOLIWARS operation muted by Dr Gono were the precursor to dollarization now commonly referred to as multicurrency usage.
He argues that by the time Biti became Finance Minister Zimbabwe shops were full to the brim with commodities and the STERP programme was plagiarised from Zanu PF’s NEDPP and NEDP economic blueprints by Biti.
Equally annoying for Zvayi is the fact that the Finance Minister is retracing steps made by his predecessors and the little money flowing in is coming from contacts made at the time he was sentencing Gono to death by firing squad for sabotaging the economy.
“Nothing has come from London, New York or Canberra, but a lot has certainly come from Sadc, and the East, regions that were lampooned along with Zanu-PF,” he wails.
This is the price we have to pay for allowing party functionaries to masquerade as Editors of public media funded by taxpayers’ funds.
They have little respect for national accountability and are obsessed with their political party’s survival at any cost.
When Zvayi says “a lot” of money now sustaining the country has come from Zanu PF’s SADC allies and not from London, New York or Canberra MDC allies the temptation to take what he states as fact is hard to resist but it is patently false.
Despite SADC promises to help fund the coalition government they imposed on Zimbabweans against their wish they have dismally failed to live by their word and are globetrotting to London Washington, Canberra, and other Western countries with Zimbabwe’s begging bawl in hand pleading for sanctions to be lifted and aid for the country’s reconstruction .
It is a fact that Zimbabwe’s dominant currency at present is the US dollar and Zvayi does not seriously advance that this is any way a Sadc currency.
When the same Westerners sought to be included in finding a lasting solution for the country which would make them feel confident and willing to deal with the establishment in charge they were told to go hang a thousand times by SADC and Zanu PF.
Now there is need for funding it dawns on Zvayi that the same people that were told to go hang and obliged will suddenly resurrect and spearhead funding for the reconstruction agenda of a regime that has still to satisfy them that it is what Zimbabweans are prepared to work with and hold accountable.
What is wrong with SADC putting their money in the trusted hands of the establishment they have imposed?
As for the Finance Minister benefiting from predecessor contacts it just goes to show how inane propagandists can become when compromised by political patronage.
Governments change leadership hands not responsibilities towards citizens. Tendai Biti would gladly forfeit any residual accruals from predecessor contacts if the same principle is extended to the liability he has inherited of a debilitating national debt incurred by his out of sorts predecessors and whose application he is being denied a chance to investigate and establish proper usage of.
In conclusion Zvayi believes STERP which was crafted as a continuity of NEDPP and NEDP is still a paper tiger without supporting driving funding and will fail as the Western would be backers are insisting on meaningful change before releasing funds which meaningful change is unacceptable to the coalition government as it has potential of reversing pro people policies like chaotic land reforms.
Sad indeed. What is pro-people in chaos? Assuming for once that aid with meaningful change strings attached is declined what benefit would accrue from pro-people policies the initiators are incapable of financing to fruition?
“We have to stop focusing on trivia and concentrate on the real issues in need of redress. Anyone who continues harping on trivia to divert the people’s attention is the real enemy of the people, and has no business pretending to be moving in step with the nation.”
Well said Mr Zvayi. The starting point is a call on all those being fingered as impediments to the lifting of sanctions and inducing foreign aid and or foreign direct investment to kick-start our tottering economy back to life to put national interest ahead of personal glory and step aside and allow the nation a chance to gain from their selflessness.
Calling for the lifting of sanctions if there are any to be lifted is itself inadequate to cause the lifting of the sanctions.
The surest way of getting sanctions lifted is to deny the imposers the pretext for imposing any embargo against our country and its leadership.
If sanctions are truly the wedge between our national progress and global partnerships for development we must get our priorities right and ask if it would benefit us to comply with the demands of the imposers or refuse to be bullied and sweat it out to prosperity somehow.
There is absolutely no justification for the spin euphemisms coming from the Herald which have no chance on earth of lifting the sanctions if any are in place.
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