Zimbabwe: The gathering storm!

By Professor Ken Mufuka | Letter from America |

The signs of disintegration are everywhere. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. While scribes rarely enter into the area of prophecy, my sense is that President Robert Mugabe’s chickens are coming home to roost.

He has played one member against another for so long and as we speak, it appears that those who once worked with him in sincerity are now coming together to tell their stories, only to find that they have similar stories to tell.

While he played one against another, Mugabe’s sense of the economy was so miniscule that even a freshman college student would beat him with one hand tied to his back.

It is the economy, stupid! To Mukuru, his ignorance deserves triple STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!

A man whose expenditures are profligate, who has been flying everywhere since January, who has never spent 21 days consecutively in Zimbabwe since beginning of the year, who flies to Singapore with family whenever he wants a doctor’s attention, has never felt the need to encourage factory owners, plantation owners (revenue producers) to produce and lay more golden eggs.

Instead, as I write, his party is embattled with the progressive Huellet Tongaat sugar plantation. The lives of 2,000 workers are at stake, as well as the viability of one of Zimbabwe’s leading sugar plantation itself.

His use of Air Zimbabwe has caused the demise of that airline. Auditor-General Mildred Chiri referes to an account used by the Transport Licensing division in a report. As much as $22 million was taken from that fund in order to finance Air Zimbabwe (the majority of whose flights involve Mugabe’s glob-trotting). Now, we know how the trips are financed. But there is also a juicy sentence which says that as much as $550,000 was unaccounted for, causing concern on the part of Sister Chiri.

I have learned that the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, which has been ordered to fleeced the citizens in order to sustain the lifestyles of the Mugabe cronies, has since last December been in a free fall.

During the last two months, its collections have been declining as follows. In order to support a $4,400,000 million budget per year,   revenue streams must produce a net income of $366 million per month. Because of company closures, Zimra is experiencing a monthly shortfall matrix of 10 percent per month.

As I write, the pay-dates for all government workers, including soldiers have been rescheduled. Government needs a surplus secret slush fund to pay secret service apparatchiks, murder by night operatives, and Itai Dzamara daylight abductors.

It was the availability of surplus cash which was used to bribe the war veterans, the military and Mugabe cronies.

Hear me well, that cash cow has now dried up, and there is panic in Mugabe circles.

After landing at the airport, I realized immediately that I had landed in the eye of a storm when a rifle wielding storm trooper pointed a gun at me, ordering me to open my suitcase. The civilian officer was annoyed and ordered me to proceed.

Yet there is a method to this madness. I was later to learn that soldiers and semi-military police have been deployed along the highways in order to intimidate citizens into paying them “something.”The government is broke.  In a stretch of 150 miles, there were 11 road police road blocks. The police find fault with “something” either on the driver or on his car and levy a spot fine of $20 dollars.

The spot fine is however negotiable and one can get away with half the fine, if one forgoes a receipt.

Road blocks and toll gates fleece travelers. A bus traveling from Bulawayo to Harare, a 350 mile route pays five $10 toll fees. In one week, the bus owner will have been fleeced of $350 or   $1400 in addition to road licenses, insurance premiums, bribes and annoyances visited on bus drivers by insouciant police.

The cost of operating a bus is prohibitive and depressing. Bus conductors ask willing passengers to pray aloud for a safe journey and protection from  “shumba demunzira” (predators on the road). I wondered whether they were, tongue in cheek referring to police predators.

I saw a driver pass on three coca cola bottles to some thirsty roadside police who had  cried out loudly Nyota (we are thirsty).

Chefs (big men) do not pay tolls, nor do they stop for inspection by predatory police.

But how is it that a country awash with gold, platinum, iron, chrome and diamonds can be broke? President Robert Mugabe acknowledged that over the last several years, the diamond wealth had been looted to a tune of $15 billion, more than three times the budget of the state. The Police Commissioner is more interested in collecting $20 fines from God’s children than in catching the big four diamond Mafioso, Ainjin, Mbada , MMC , and Jin Nyame.

The looters have connections with the ruling party and they have spread their tentacles to every part of the economy. Recently, I visited Bulawayo, the center of National Railways. My gracious hostess was the wife of the Chairman of National Railways. The Chairperson heard of his sacking on radio, a sign of the arrogant indifference to human sensibilities by the rulers.

Despite such news, the impressive Mrs. Mabhena never lost her smile, warning me kindly to drop the phrase “an older lady.”  She never lost sight of the mission, to welcome “Ken to kwaBulawayo.”

No solution in sight

Nevertheless, the emotions are boiling under the surface of these gentle people. Abuse can only go so long and so far.  The present dictatorship is completely out of the loop. A peaceful protest by women beating empty pots, signifying that there was no food to cook, marched through Bulawayo in a peaceful protest.

While I was there, an announcement that National Railways was laying off 1,500 employees caused urgent desperate whispers among the populace. There was no cause for alarm really as the workers had not been paid for two years.

The National Railways, like all other government run companies was destroyed by relentless looting by political appointees. It was stripped of its assets, some price pieces of land along the railroads were sold for a song.

I did not see a single train on the main Bulawayo route. On the Mutare route, a passenger train was four hours late. The engineers are paid over-time when they arrive late at their destination. It would be stupid to keep time.

Barclays Bank at Sam Levy Center simply did not have any money.

Government’s solution is to increase the number of baton +wielding police on the streets. Pundits and scribes are warned about “disappearances” the secret service usually gives a fair warning to rebellious spirits.

Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamasa’s heart is in the right place, but his mission is impossible. Government believes borrowing is a solution. While it expelled corn farmers, it was forced to import the same from Mexico. Zimbabwean farmers who sold corn to the Grain Marketing Board in 2011 were paid in 2014.

Since Zimbabwe owes $10 billion from every corner of the globe, Chinamasa believes that he can borrow from Lazzard Bank ( a New York adventure outfit) to satisfy the World Bank. He misses two issues. The US Secretary of State and US Senate will not approve. Secondly the voodoo mathematics of borrowing from Lazzard to pay other banks does not make sense.

The British can be of some help, but Mukuru has told them to“ keep their little England, and I keep my Zimbabwe.” Public relations do matter.

There are 65 ministries; three deal with land, three deal with education,( one of which is called PSCHO). I pray they are not educating our children to be PSYCHOS. There are three in security, and the list goes on and on.

The President flies out of the country almost weekly, depriving Air Zimbabwe of its most efficient plane. Mukuru and his family receive medical treatment in Singapore. The Vice President has lived in a five star hotel for two years.

The long term solution is to resuscitate moribund businesses. But as I have shown above, a simple bus line operation faces insurmountable odds to succeed.

This leaves only one solution, change of leadership.

The puppies are opening their eyes

The most significant development has been the fall-out between the War Veteran Association with their puppet master, Mukuru. It is true that Chris Mustwangwa (Veterans elected leader) was used in the plot

that overthrew Vice president Joice Mujuru, he was later discarded after serving a purpose. He has now opened his eyes about the monster he has served all these years.

Our readers are reminded that the War Veterans were used in the beatings, intimidation and even murders and burnings of opposition members during or after elections. In the last election, there was a schedule of payments, beating or burning of property earned stalwart $400,000 Zim dollars (U$ 40). A murder was quite lucrative; there a problem of bringing proof or receipt of the murder.

The significance of the War Veterans rebellion lies in the fact that their national meeting was held in Harare and attended by representatives from as far as Victoria Falls and Maguswini (the end of the world). The logistics of travel allowances, lodging and food were handled in a professional manner. Please note the rhetorical quality of the statement below.

“WE note with concern, shock and dismay the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by President and his cohorts, which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle in utter disregard of the Constitution, as demonstrated by (among others things) the deliberate neglect and abandonment by the party president of the masses, who are the foundation upon which the liberation war was fought and won.”

The sum total of these two propositions, the logistics and the rhetorical excellence of the resolution denouncing Mugabe, my proposition is that only a mind of the brilliance of Christopherf Mutswangwa could have crafted such a double matrix.

Now, the crunch of the matter is that Mustwangwa and the War Veterans have hidden support among the military  and that the Veterans are being aided and abated to send a message.

The second equayion of the matrix is that Mugabe has lost war of the information age. The War Veterans resolution was widely broadcast even in government newspapers, even though the Sunday Mail claimed that Vice President Emmerson Mutswangwa denounced the resolution.

Knowing how ZANU has operated in the past, the more your friends say they are with you, you must be assured that they are speaking with a forked tongue. If Mukuru lasts to the end of the year, I will burn my shirt. He is now like the king who tried to stop a water reservoir from over-flowing with his hands.

Greetings

Mukoma Ken (Professor)