Morgan Grovels As Dictator Mugabe Gloats

By Denford Magora

You have by now heard about Morgan Tsvangirai’s apology to dictator Robert “The Solution” Mugabe over the boycott of last Monday’s Cabinet meeting by Tsvangirai’s ministers.

It was the dictator himself who let the cat out of the bag, telling journalists in Libya that the PM had apologised and labelling the boycotting ministers’ move “abject ignorance”.

But this should not surprise anyone who reads this blog. I told you a few days ago that Tsvangirai is now to the MDC-T what Mugabe is to ZANU PF: they can not go against his wishes, even if those wishes are against the wishes of the people. And they will never be able to get rid of him.

Tsvangirai who, according to people I spoke to in Kuwadzana at the weekend, has “sold out”, has decided that Mugabe is the solution and everyone must agree with him or else.

He came back from his overseas trip and immediately poured cold water over the suggestions by his deputy Thokozani Khupe, that the MDC-T may consider pulling out of the Inclusive Government.

No pull-out, come what may, the PM said.

Just like I told you on the day the news of the pull-out threat spread all over the world like wildfire.

In South Africa, the PM had gone even further, saying that the MDC-T will either succeed or fail together with Mugabe.

And then there was the issue of Tendai Biti, who called the Zimbabwe Independent a “gutter” newspaper for publishing a front page splash this last Friday announcing that Biti had signed a US$5 bllion deal with the Chinese.

Biti denies the story and says it has no basis whatsoever in fact and truth. It is a cooked up story, claims the mDC-T Finance Minister. So there is no US$5 billion coming.

Yes, there is a US$950 million facility that was extended by the Chinese, but apparently, according to Mugabe and Biti himself, this was negotiated by the Reserve Bank and Gideon Gono almost a year ago.

That US$950 million means nothing and will do nothing for Zimbabwe. This is especially so now, when Biti, the MDC-T Finance Minister, has announced that on July 16 he will, in his mid-term Budget speech, abandon the payment of US$100 “allowances” that are being paid to civil servants.

“It is sending a wrong signal to businesses,” he said, adding that businesses now thought the US$100 was a salary and they were pegging their own pay structures to this.

Quite apart from the obvious question of where they will get this money to pay “proper salaries” to civil servants (that US$950 million will be gobbled up within three months), there is the issue of setting the bar too high for businesses who are already struggling.

Many companies will go under in the next six months as they fail to meet the new salary demands bench-marked to civil servants’ new salaries. Of that you can be absolutely certain.