Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: ED a permanent resident of Cloud cuckoo-land

By Luke Tamborinyoka 

If there was need for any V11 evidence that we have an alien leadership that is not grounded in the reality of the Zimbabwe that we all live in, then the ZANU PF plush ceremony in  Goromonzi provided the clearest confirmation.

Mnangagwa stood up and told his party audience that there was no going back on the mono-currency; that there would not be any quick return to the multi-currency regime that provided massive respite to the people of Zimbabwe during the time the MDC extended its competent hand on the wheel of government between 2009 and 2013.

ED told his bemused audience that the country would stick to the local currency, the Zimdollar, the bond note or the RTGS, whichever of the many names is the actual name of our so-called currency. All we know is that the bond has bonded us to massive confusion as some of its denominations are being rejected in Zimbabwe.

So ED is exhorting the country to retain faith in a “currency” that is being rejected even in its own country. The man is certainly a visitor to the country he purports to be leading.

Lost to Mnangagwa is that the economy–and not the government–is firmly in charge of the currency dynamics. Equally lost to his delusional mind is the fact that the multi-currency regime is fully functional, with almost everything being pegged on the greenback.

From transport to groceries, fuel stations, car parts and spares,  health-care products, drugs and even transport fares, the US dollar is fully functional in Zimbabwe, never mind government’s grand  delusion that the greenback is “ banned.”

In fact, what is slowly being banned by the market is the RTGS, which is losing value every minute, assuming it had any value in the first place!

If he we were to be honest with himself, even as he spewed his delusion of grandeur, Mnangagwa had US dollars in his pocket at the time he was lying to his minions in Goromonzi that we are a country with a mono-currency. These guys have dismally failed to rig the economy, which has spawned its own reality away from the fiction of a mono-currency. In fact what has been proscribed is the so-called mono-currency, where the 25 cent and 50 cent coins have been “banned” by the un-riggable economic reality of our time.

It is unfortunate for ED that he cannot unleash the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to extend its malignant hand to the economy. The market and the economy have their own rules and regulations which make them allergic to tinkering.

It is high time the illegitimate, blood-soaked regime accepted that it is out of touch with reality. The echelons of power, particularly ED himself, have simply assumed permanent residence status in Cloud Cuckoo land!

They are simply out of touch; unaware that the rand, the greenback and  other foreign currencies are in vogue in the Zimbabwean economy.

In fact, we are fast accelerating towards the madness of 2008, where we had a 1 trillion dollar note during that time when the country was replete with starving millionaires. That we have now banned the publication of annual inflation figures is evidence of the stupid denial of our true situation and a stark confirmation to our inexorable march backwards to the ignominy of 2008.  

In fact, the regime itself has confirmed that we will soon be having 10 dollar and 20 dollar notes, a move likely to lead to the further rejection by the market of the one dollar and two dollar coins that are still being grudgingly accepted.

The regime must just accept that it has failed. And just as previous professors in our midst such as Jonathan Moyo in Mugabe’s government dis-incentivised youngsters from going to school by dint of their palpable stupidity that manifested in the bad laws they crafted for the country, so too is Professor Mthuli Ncube failing to exhibit any evidence that he “ate” big book!

On another note, this Sunday, 22 December 2019 will be “Unity” day in a country ironically riven with so much division and polarization!

There is simply no unity in the country as reflected by the tragic marital status of the two Vice Presidents Kembo Mohadi and Constantino Chiwenga who have failed to keep the unity;  even at the micro-level of  their own matrimonial beds!

The charity of our unity must surely  begin at home, literally!

And Marry has been pierced (mubaiwa) by the coercive disposition of  her soldier husband; confining her to marital Siberia for the second if not the third time in her youthful life.

Meanwhile, relatives and friends are trooping into prison, singing that famous chorus that has become an overnight craze among despondent Zimbabweans: Tauya kuzoona Marry, Marry Marry…..

I remember with nostalgia  singing this choral refrain in my childhood years under the glaring moonlight at Tamborenyoka village in Domboshava in the early 80s. 

“Marry” Christmas, beloved Zimbabweans!

Luke Tamborinyoka is the Deputy National Spokesperson of the MDC. He is a multiple award winning journalist and an ardent political scientist who won the Book Prize for best student when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science at the University of Zimbabwe. You can interact with him on Facebook or on the twitter handle @luke_tambo.