Tendai Biti – Implosion of failure, hatred but no thought leadership
Zimbabwe is facing a multitude of crises, which have been worsened by the lack of national leadership while the country burns and continues to deteriorate and the Zanu PF government remains clueless on how it can turn around the country’s economy, Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Thursday.
Biti who now leads the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), was addressing the first press conference of the party at its headquarters in Harare.
“What we are seeing is an implosion of failure, hatred but no thought leadership. That 36 years after independence we have over 91% unemployment while the majority of the people are surviving on less than $0.35c per day and per capita income is below $200 is unacceptable,” Biti said.
“We are concerned by the lack of leadership. The Indigenisation and Empowerment Act must be repealed as it is a policy that is only serving Robert Mugabe and his cronies. The country is facing serious food shortages and over 1, 5 million will be in need of food aid but even up to now the government is not declaring a national food disaster so that the international food agencies are able to mobilise food aid.
“Zanu PF has failed and we should not expect anything better from them. As a party we are concerned with the demolitions that are taking place in local councils some of which are controlled by the opposition political parties,” he said.
Biti said the demolitions were illegal as they were taking place without court orders and the occupiers were not being offered compensation as enshrined in the Constitution.
“The new Constitution demands the right of decent shelter to every citizen. As PDP we are also concerned by the collapse of social service delivery with the roads lacerated with potholes which are resulting in a high number of accidents and lives being lost,” he said.
The former MDC-T Secretary General who broke away to form his own party, said schools opened three weeks ago but a high number of students failed to return to class as their parents failed to pay for their school fees.
“The situation is bad in both urban and rural schools that in some schools there are now a high number of teachers compared to students. Of all the rights in the Constitution, the right to education is the most important but Zanu PF has killed the BEAM facility in breach of the Constitution, which is proof that this government has failed and must resign and resign yesterday,” he said.
He expressed concern over the delays by the government in implementing key electoral reforms ahead of the 2018 elections while the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has failed to provide a fresh voters’ roll.
“The excuse that they provide is that they will start with in the by-elections but that is not good enough. We demand a brand new voter registration exercise. It should be biometric. The minimum demand is the use of fingerprints should be available. This process demands about $38 million and it should start now,” said President Biti.
On coalition talks, he said the PDP will continue to occupy its strategic space.
“We are building a coalition of champions bound by values and principles and we are working so that it becomes a reality. Those are sufficient conditions for change in Zimbabwe and we genuinely believe that another Zimbabwe is possible,” Biti added.
Meanwhile, the PDP secretary general, Dr. Gorden Moyo at the same press conference announced the announcement of prominent economist and writer, Vince Musewe as the new PDP’s secretary for finance and economic affairs.
“The man is passionate about economic affairs. The nest chapter of the struggle for a new Zimbabwe requires thought leadership and we are proud to say that as PDP we occupy that space and that we have thought leadership in Vince,” Moyo said while announcing the appointment.
