Saviour Kasukuwere and Joseph Made impose belated sanctions on Zimbabwe

Gushungo Holdings proprietor and President Mugabe's second wife Grace enlisted cousin in Law and Youth Minister Saviour Kasukuwere to drive Nestle Zimbabwe into closing shop over the company's refusal to buy milk from a farm she expropriated without paying a single cent to previous owners resulting in the company hitting back by closing shop and living 200 employees jobless. Thanks to Kasukuwere and Made we now know who is sanctioning our country-Zanu PF and its President's wife

At a delicate time when most well meaning Zimbabwean political leaders are spending sleepless nights trying to find avenues to revive the country’s battered economy and their efforts are showing positive turnaround signs dim-witted Zanu PF ministers Joseph Made (Agriculture) and Saviour Kasukuwere (Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment) have chosen to swim against the tide and impose sanctions on the very country they claim is burdened by illegal sanctions imposed by the US and its EU allies.
Saviour Kasukuwere and Joseph Made accompanied by senior Police officers, Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge and ...
Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa and Affirmative Action Group vice President paid the Swiss owned Zimbabwe food processing company Nestlé following failed attempted forced delivery of a tanker full of milk from Gushungo Holdings by six employees of the company owned by President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace.

According to the state owned Herald newspaper that many now consider a Zanu PF mouthpiece rather than the Public Media enterprise it was established to be, Kasukuwere accused the West of using Nestlé “to impose further sanctions on the country.”

While indeed Gushungo Holdings is an indigenously owned company seeing as it belongs to the First family that alone does not entitle it to secure contracts with any entity doing business in the country at gunpoint.

Like any other company Gushungo Holdings must attract customers for its products through ethical and competitive marketing of its products without using political and national law enforcement agents and Ministers to coerce sales.

Minister Kasukuwere must know the difference between Gushungo Holdings and the country he serves in government well enough to avoid embarrassing himself, if at all he knows of the existence of the word, by making such foolish public statements.

There are numerous Zimbabwe establishments in dire need of milk such as Dairibord, Government Hospitals, Schools and other food manufactures too numerous to list here that it is curious why Gushungo Holdings appears determined to force Nestle to buy its product if not to push a political agenda that has lost favour with most Zimbabweans.

Be that as it may it would appear that its employees having failed to convince a potential customer to buy the Gushungo Holdings milk delivery they abused the office of the President by roping in Ministers and Police Officers to compel Nestlé to buy the President’s milk.

The justification for this high handed action appears to have stemmed from the fact that Nestlé had previously bought Gushungo holdings milk until October 2009 when it suspended dealings with the company following a public outcry and threatened customer boycott of its products after it was accused of dealing directly with a Zimbabwean company owned by people specified in EU sanctions for Human Rights abuses in the country.

To a certain degree then it appears minister Kasukuwere’s reasoning has logic that the company was complying with a sanctions regime that the country is attempting to smash at any cost.

But on further examination it becomes apparent that the reasoning is flawed and imposes more severe sanctions on the country than would be the case if it was left to operate without associating with Gushungo Holdings.

As a consequence of the political marketing strategy employed by Gushungo Holdings in its dealings with Nestlé, the Swiss owned company has closed shop and with that act the country has lost no less than 200 direct jobs in the company but will now have to import the products the company used to manufacture locally.
Downstream jobs in suppliers and customers of Nestlé Zimbabwe have not even been taken into account and it is safe to estimate than 100 000 jobs will be affected by this transaction alone.

When Nestlé refused to buy Gushungo Holdings milk no more than 1000 direct and indirect jobs were threatened.

Next time Zanu PF complaints that it is the MDC that caused the imposition of sanctions on the country they need to be reminded of the consequences of their ill conceived retributive actions against companies they believe are pushing a political agenda that is against their political agenda like Nestlé.

By forcing the premature closure of the Swiss based country in Zimbabwe at a time there is concerted regional and internal efforts to get the Swiss Government to rethink its participation in the sanctions regime against the country the ministers have not done the efforts any favours.

The Swiss government will simply hit back hard by imposing more stringent restrictions against the country bearing in mind that the country is a giant in world supplies of telecommunications and electronics equipment which the country desperately needs for its economic turnaround efforts to succeed.

But then the reputation of those that participated in the Nestlé closure is there for all to see.

Saviour Kasukuwere is a cousin to President Mugabe who made his fortune as a CIO operative in Mutare and is the proud owner of Comoil a company that racked in billions from fuel shortages in Mugabe and Zanu PF misruled Zimbabwe.

He was alleged to have led the disruptions of the all stakeholders constitution making process at the Rainbow Towers Hotel in July where he ended up embroiled in the Chinotimba/mahlangu mobile phone theft fiasco.

Joseph Made is the Minister of Agriculture who is reputed for accusing monkeys for fertilizer shortages and making flawed grain intake estimates from helicopter flights over Zimbabwe’s vast agricultural regions.

Of late he has been exposed as the minister of Agriculture who spends most of his time on Gushungo Holdings farms and Dr Gideon Gono’s poultry farm in Norton.
Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge and Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa are from the notorious ZRP Law and order section that has close links with the CIO and are the AG’s foot soldiers in persecuting MDC and Civic Society activists. They were there when Jestina Mukoko was abducted and we now know what the legal position is about their law enforcement methods.

As for Farai Mutamangira of the AAG it is important to know that this group is not regulated and much as it has noble intentions its methods are known to have been overboard and in many instances corruption tainted.

These are the people who Zanu PF must bring to book and whip into line if it entertains any lifting of travel restrictions and sanctions it says are suffocating the country and the party’s leadership.

It will be asking too much for the Swiss to open their doors for free entry by Zanu PF adherents symbolised by Kasukuwere and Made when the same people are closing down its investments in their country because they do not wish to deal with political leadership owned enterprises in Zimbabwe.