Fasting for the poor
At a recent rally, ironically held amidst the squalor of Mbare’s flats, First Lady Grace Mugabe made the most preposterous claim since she entered politics. Addressing the usual rented crowd, Grace said she often skips meals in solidarity with the famished majority. But based on past expenditure, it is safe to assume that Mugabe and his cronies will not have the starving masses in mind, once the annual orgy of food and drink commences.
Mugabe shakes down private sector
Last year, the ruling party’s bigwigs donated several head of cattle and piles of cash which nobody knew existed in a country reputed for a liquidity crisis, since the change from Zim dollar to foreign currencies. Throughout October this year, the country endured Zanu(PF)’s brazen appeals for “donations.” Like some spoilt side-chick demanding pizza and airtime, the ruling party regularly read out it’s bank account details on national TV. Mugabe’s party held a shake-down function and called it a fundraising dinner.
‘We are inviting corporates and people from various sectors in the country. Anyone from government officials, corporates, marketing personnel and community leaders can attend and we have different table, all accommodating ten people,”read a statement by Jerriphanos Jaya, Zanu (PF) national fundraising dinner co-ordinator.
Anyone who is fluent in the ruling party’s mafia language will be aware that “we are inviting”means “cough up or make an enemy of His Excellency.” One wonders where these “corporates”are, when Mugabe’s bad governance has killed industry.
Feasting while citizens starve
This year, Zanu (PF, targeting a $3million collection, held its fundraising dinner at a five star hotel, for which guests paid anything from $10,000 to $100,000 per table. With each table seating 10 diners, every person who attended the fundraiser paid $1,000 for a bronze ticket and $10,000 for platinum. The United Nations’ World Food Programme has said 1,5million people in Zimbabwe (12% of the population) face starvation this year, a situation brought about by low rainfall and Mugabe’s failure to manage food production and delivery to the Grain Marketing Board. Most of the small scale farmers have abandoned food production for tobacco and mining, which is perceived to be easy money. As a result, the countryside is pockmarked with craters and tree stumps left in the trail of fortune seekers who care little for the environment. The GMB has struggled to pay grain producers in recent years. It is no surprise at all that the few farmers who are still growing maize are unwilling to sell their produce to the parastatal. Consequently, over a tenth of the population is in need of food aid. For those amounts of money paid at Zanu (PF) fundraising dinner, thousands of rumbling bellies could have been silenced.
Just how hungry are the Mugabes?
We are repeatedly told that Zanu (PF) is “the people’s party”. Who are these people, if not the impoverished majority? Those on one meal a day will only be able to feed from the whiff of roast meat wafting from Victoria Falls.
First Lady Grace Mugabe said she often goes hungry, in her mansion. The chubby cheeks on Chatunga Bellarmine suggest there is very little fasting going on at the president’s home. The week of debauchery set for Victoria Falls says even louder that she may have stretched the truth a little in that regard.
I will never fly again
Zanu (PF) Harare’s provincial leadership has resolved to rename the Harare International Airport after Robert Mugabe. Pause for thought.
Zimbabwe’s biggest hospital discarded its colonial name – Andrew Flemming – after independence. It was renamed Parirenyatwa, after the late former Zapu deputy chairman, Tichafa Parirenyatwa, who was also the country’s first black medical doctor. Pause for thought.
What’s in a name?
Parirenyatwa Hospital, with its new name, has no drugs. President Mugabe will not be caught dead in any of its wards – unless of course he is visiting a sick person. Parirenyatwa Hospital, with its often smelly mortuaries and routinely striking doctors has not become any better from its change of name. What seemed like an honour for a liberation icon is really an insult on the late Parirenyatwa’s name.
Robert Mugabe’s name hangs on signposts in every major town. In point of fact, the street signs are missing from the sign posts. They have all been stolen by hungry youths who melt the aluminium to make watering cans and funnels. But Zimbos being who we are, we have improvised. The town councillors figured they would write street names on bridges and kerbs. Nobody can steal a whole bridge right? But the same bridges, bearing Mugabe’s name now have a dirty glow, thanks to the friction of thousands of unemployed bums that sit there everyday.
Pilfering postmen
Remember when PTC was PTC – before the geniuses at Rotten Row decided that things would function better if the state-owned corporation was split into Zimpost and Tel One. If you mailed a letter it arrived unopened. Now, sending packages by Zimpost is a game of Russian roulette. And everyone knows that the house always wins.
Harare or Salisbury
In the city of Salisbury, garbage was collected weekly, without fail. You were thirsty, you turned the tap and an amazing thing happened – water came out. Clean, sparkling, cholera-free water, which you drank without having to first boil. Now, if you are lucky enough to have tap water in Harare, it is a slimey black-green substance which even a street mongrel would not drink. A dog, which licks itself everywhere, will think twice about drinking Harare’s tapped poison. I am not nostalgic about Rhodesia. In Rhodesia, my grandmother was called “girl”and my granddad was “boy.” I do not pine for Rhodesia. But I do pine for good service.
One-man protest
So Zanu PF wants to rename the country’s biggest airport, after Mugabe. In an era when a bottle of Harpic costs only $1,50, the toilets at Harare International constantly smell of excrement. Will a new name freshen the air?
Zanu (PF) will probably have their way, as always. But I, in protest, will never board a plane to or from Hatfield ever again.
Till next week, my pen is capped.
Post published in: Featured