Mugabe selling Zimbabwe for a piece of calico cloth

By Wilbert Mukori

Mugabe is selling off the nation’s treasures for a song to buy his stay in power. The Chinese and Indians know the tyrant is desperate for money to finance his dubious ZimAsset plan.

I say dubious because there can be no doubt that the money will be wasted because the regime has done nothing to end the rampant corruption and mismanagement, the root causes of the economic collapse that landed us in this mess in the first.

As long as nothing is done to end corruption and mismanagement, economic recovery will remain a pipe dream. Any money thrown in the ZimAsset begging bowl will be a signal the regime has been waiting for that it is business as usual.

The Chinese and Indians know the regime is desperate for cash,  there will be no competition as everyone else has been scared away by the regime’s indigenisation laws and other misguided policies and so they can name whatever price they want. And this is exactly what is happening here.

Zimbabweans will have the right to reopen the ZISCO deal Mugabe signed with the Indian Steel company, Essar, and all deals he signs with the Chinese on the grounds that the deals were not in the public interest and that the regime, having rigged the July 2013 elections, is illegitimate and therefore has no authority to enter into these contracts.

The Chinese are promising Mugabe $10 billion for his ZimAsset begging bowl, this will double the national debt and we will still have little to show for it. Indeed the debt burden would weigh so heavily on the nation making it impossible for it to recover. The Chinese and Indians are not exactly renowned for their generosity in cancelling debt!

It is ironic that Mugabe is the one who has been preaching to no end about how black Zimbabweans should own the country’s resources and yet he is the one who is busy selling the nation’s resources for the traditional calico cloth and a handful of beads, slaves were sold for!