MuckRaker: Kasukuwere needs to heed his own advice

It was useful to have Patrick Chinamasa’s comments on recent political events this week.

The purpose of the exercise –– an interview with Munyaradzi Huni –– was obviously to promote the myth that Zanu PF was responsible for economic policies that provided stability after the formation of the Government of National Unity in 2009.

In fact, Zanu PF was responsible for promoting the anarchy we continue to witness in the agricultural sector and behind the indigenisation programme. The official policy on the land now is that it is under-utilised. As a result, Zanu PF will oppose a land audit.

“Yes, naturally it will be under-utilised,” Chinamasa commented.

“I have said it on many occasions, I would not want to see any assessment of people’s productive capacities at this moment because the resources are not there.”

But we thought land reform was an unalloyed triumph for the revolutionary party! And we certainly don’t recall Chinamasa saying that any sort of audit could not go ahead because there were insufficient resources available to farmers.

Who was responsible for that? Here’s another disclosure: “The few who are producing are doing so from their own resources and you know what we went through in 2008. All our capital, all our bank accounts were washed out.”

Again, who was responsible for that?

“We have had to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” Chinamasa declared. “I accept that there is a lot of land that is not being productive. It belongs to people with no capacity to use it.”

Goodness, what a comment on his colleagues!

And there’s more. “What basically brought us to the negotiating table under Sadc was the unfortunate assault on Tsvangirai at a police station.”

So if it was so “unfortunate”, why has the government not done anything about it? Does this not promote impunity? What does Chinamasa, Minister of Justice, think beyond pronouncing it “unfortunate”? Huni didn’t ask so Chinamasa didn’t tell.

This would be a good point to remind ourselves of what Eddison Zvobgo had to say about land “reform”.

“We have tainted,” he said, “what was a glorious revolution reducing it to some agrarian racist enterprise.”

And that is precisely what it has remained!

Meanwhile, here are a few words for Munyaradzi Huni to add to his limited lexicon: Mwale, Machipisa, Ndira, Nabanyama. Very soon we shall be ruled by failed bankers. We can hear their rabid barking already even though cabinet has not approved their plans to seize control of banks and schools.

If you are not a registered voter don’t complain when the collapse which is just around the corner occurs. You have a weapon against misrule. You just have to claim it.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono and Indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere reached a truce on Monday in their public row over the takeover of foreign-owned banks, reports NewZimbabwe.com.

Kasukuwere who recently went berserk shouting unprintable words when quizzed about his contrasting position with that of Gono had accused the latter of being “immature”. He then lectured Gono that “discharging national responsibilities requires maturity and sober reasoning”.

Clearly Kasukuwere does not heed his own advice judging by his recent f-word rant to hapless journalists. Despite being vituperative in his attacks on foreign-owned banks Kasukuwere is surprisingly tame and evasive when it comes to his role in the demise of the ill-fated Genesis Investment Bank.

Despite claiming he no longer had anything to do with the closed bank, we recently carried a story which revealed Kasukuwere had a 13,8% stake in Genesis through various investment vehicles as recently as May 8.

He has blamed economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union for the collapse of his business empire.

“Here is a company (Genesis) which has gone under not because of mismanagement, but purely because of sanctions,” he said

Kasukuwere has now set his sights on the already decimated education system, extending the asset-grab programme under the indigenisation laws to include privately-owned educational institutions including crèches, primary and secondary schools as well as institutions of higher learning.

This is despite cabinet ministers such as Education minister David Coltart saying there was no such cabinet policy. Very soon the sanctions will also be to blame for the closure of schools.

When will the perennially under-construction library in Kuwadzana be finally operational? For the past decade we have been promised time and again that the library will open “soon”.

The MP for the area, MDC-T national organising secretary Nelson Chamisa, at the weekend told Kuwadzana residents he had “repossessed” the community library which had been converted into a Zanu PF torture base, NewsDay reports.

“Our colleagues from Zanu PF used to torture people at this place during the 2008 elections,” he claimed. “They even ended up stealing window panes, toilet equipment and other plumbing material. Every resident in Kuwadzana, including the unborn children, know about this,” he said.

For the umpteenth time Chamisa announced that the library would be officially opened soon. We hope this “soon” will arrive in our lifetimes! A little less talk and a lot more action go a long way Cde Chamisa. That includes hero-worship of other people’s leaders.

Zambian jester-in-chief President Michael Sata was once again in the news for yet another “joke”, this time at former US President George W Bush’s expense. Sata and Bush held a press conference commemorating a charity project which included the donation of a cervical cancer-screening centre.

Sata complained about “the young man”, 66-year old Bush, being late for their meeting, adding that were he not bringing money to Africa, he would not have waited.

“The young man is lucky that he is the first American leader to have brought money to Africa through his Millennium Challenge Account; that’s why I’m standing here. Otherwise if it was somebody else I would have handed him over to one of my ministers to meet him.”

Sata lashed out at Bush, calling him a “colonialist” who had come to pay back all the resources he had stolen from Africa. But this was all light-hearted we were told. The two leaders know each other well.

In an effort to mend relations, former Zambian President Rupiah Banda sent a personal letter of apology to Bush after Sata’s outburst.

Part of the letter read: “These statements, which were not only factually incorrect and undiplomatic, do not represent the true feelings of the Zambian people, who strongly recognise the value of positive relations with the United States of America.”

Sata then hit back with a strongly-worded reaction to Banda’s statement saying he was “deeply embarrassed” by Banda’s exaggeration of his “light-hearted” conversation with Bush. He then “encouraged” Banda to “behave in a manner befitting a former Head of State” and “behave as a mature adult”.

“Mr Banda spent his presidency doing wrong things for himself and his children. I therefore understand his desperation and attempts to seek relevance, though in wrong places this time around,” charged Sata.

Sata described Banda’s conduct as “unbecoming and unprecedented for a self-respecting former Head of State”. A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!

Muckraker was amused by Nathaniel Manheru’s pathetic attempt to claim victory from the outcome of the Sadc summit in Luanda which blocked President Mugabe’s push for elections without reforms in 2012. Zanu PF’s clamour for elections this year should not have been taken literally, Manheru asserts.

“That urgency has been expressed through a demand for elections “in 2012”, a phrase which the two (MDC) formations want to read literally, want to read in calendar terms, indeed as a mathematical magnitude.”

According to Manheru the push for polls this year was a mere “metaphor” to ensure “they fall in line with the frenetic election time-table which Zanu PF desires”.

“The bottom line is that we are going for elections; we are ending this dysfunctional inclusive government, and this because Zanu PF — the ruler — has willed it,”Manheru claimed. This is despite Manheru’s boss President Mugabe having declared in May that elections would be held this year without fail.

At the 2010 Zanu PF conference in Mutare, Mugabe swore that elections would be held in 2011, with party members declaring they would not allow the coalition government to continue beyond that year.

Part of the resolutions made by the party in 2010 read: “Resolves that at the expiry of the term of the Global Political Agreement with two MDC formations on September 15, 2008 and the inclusive government born therefrom on February 13, 2009, the country must hold harmonised elections without fail.”

Who is fooling who here? Originally published in the Zimbabwe Independent