A prominent political columnist in Zimbabwe’s state-owned media stable has dismissed former South African Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni’s proposal to set up a fund to help Zimbabwean beggars and vendors in the country as a case of “misbehaviour” and an act of “telescopic philanthropy”.
Instead of thinking about Zimbabweans, the Herald columnist, known by the pen-name of “Nathaniel Manheru”, although widely believed to be presidential spokesman George Charamba, said Mboweni would be better advised to help South Africans as 40% of that country’s population was wallowing in unemployment and poverty.
“It is a fact that there are many Zimbabweans in South Africa, including those who beg and sell wares on the streets. But it is also a fact that there are many South Africans who beg and sell wares on the streets.
“Above all, there are many vendors and beggars from other neighbouring states and beyond, which makes poverty mapping such an intricate process in South Africa.
“But to suggest setting up a fund for ‘poor’ Zimbabweans in a country where there is upward of 40% black unemployment … is surely to be at odds with facts on the ground.
“To see begging and vending as exclusively Zimbabwean is to indulge in deceitful displeasure. It is – Dickensian and Mrs Jellyby-like – to indulge in telescopic philanthropy,” Manheru said in a column published by all state-owned dailies on Saturday.
The columnist said it was a fact that, like in all of southern Africa, poverty in South Africa was exclusively “black”. African News Agency
