EDITORIAL

The news that President Robert Mugabe has raided peoples’ foreign currency accounts to pay for tractors, ox-drawn ploughs and other items, that he has been dishing out like confetti to Zanu (PF) supporters in rural and urban areas, must be condemned  unreservedly.
In effect, Mugabe has robbed forex bank account holders – individuals, NGOs and companies – to buy votes for himself.
He hasn’t even got the decency to pay for his election campaign out of his own pocket or from his party’s coffers.
Is this facility available to the other three presidential candidates? Can Morgan, Simba and Langton also access forex from the Reserve Bank to buy tractors to dish out to potential voters? Some people are more equal than others!
In the past 12 months Mugabe has spent £12 million in forex of other people’s money doling out goods to the ruling party’s elite in order to buy their support. Can you imagine what life could be like in Zimbabwe today if this money had been spent properly – on medicine, food and fuel to name a few basic commodities?
Instead, the money is given to the same fatcats over and over again. These same people – among them senior army, police and air force officers, senior civil servants, chiefs – year in and year out have to be given seed, fertiliser, fuel, cattle, farm equipment and so on.
Meanwhile the majority of Zimbabweans are expected to chant slogans and vote for Zanu (PF) on empty stomachs.
And now those same fatcat recipients are queuing to receive the shares of the soon-to-be nationalised companies and mines. In return, they are threatening their subordinates to vote for Mugabe or else they will stage a coup d’etat. So desperate are they to keep their snouts in the feeding trough that they are prepared to negate the will of the people.
They know that they have a lot to lose if Mugabe fails to garner enough votes to continue the plunder of resources in order to maintain his corrupt patronage system.
Are the majority of Zimbabweans expected to look on helplessly and keep these same people in government so that they can maintain the luxurious lifestyles to which they have become accustomed?
We know that these recipients are not productive farmers, despite the perennial excuses made on their behalf about the causes – drought, shortage of seeds, no diesel, not enough equipment, etc. They are not productive businessmen either. Just like the agricultural sector, soon there will be no commerce, industry or mining to speak of in Zimbabwe.
Voters need to consider seriously – Is Mugabe really the right person to govern Zimbabwe for the next five years?
WORd
“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.” – Revelation 7:14-16