By Albert Mpofu|
CCC Vice President, and former Finance Minister, Honourable Tendai Biti outlined seven crucial inquiries that the ZanuPF administration under Emerson Mnangagwa has not addressed since 2017.
“Those seven issues will be a major battleground in forthcoming election.
First is the regime s failure to turn around the economy. Run away inflation,the currency and exchange rate crises deficit financing , quasi fiscal activities and a deranged Central Bank are but examples of this catastrophic failure.
Second has been failure to address the conditions of service of public servants Teachers, nurses , doctors and all have been reduced to paupers on back of paltry Zimbabwe dollar salaries. The result is a crippling brain drain that has seen 74 % of country s professionals live the country.
Third has been total collapse of public services. Hospitals have no drugs, thousands are subjected to slow genocide due to total collapse of services. Education has all but collapsed, pass rates are shockin and more than 50% of students are dropping out of school.
Fourth has been dramatic failure to address poverty&food insecurity. Despite billions poured annually into agriculture Zim remains food insecure with 60% of population depended on handouts from the State or donor support.
Poverty levels have been rising & 79 % of people in A1 farms & urban areas living in extreme poverty .
Fifth is the pathetic human rights & governance situation. The closure of political space is astounding with Citizens’Coalition for Change virtually a banned organization. Hundreds of its meetings have been banned, its leadership is facing multiple prosecutions. Honourable Job Sikhala has spend nearly a year in prison. Journalists , lawyers , students & all have not been spared.
Sixth is the regime s failure to combat corruption. Corruption is the holy grail of current regime with Zim hemorrhaging billions in smuggling and illicit financial flaws.Under this regime ,the State itself is principal Bank robber with the Ministry of Finance right at the center of extractive processes. Corruption is nexus between the Deep State & the power retention agenda. A combination that forms the biggest threat against democratic change in Zim. Seven is the Developmental Deficit. 43 years after independence Zim looks like it’s has been frozen since the fifties.
The State of its infrastructure, its roads rail dams and power situation competes with failed States. The power situation is collapsing companies and citizens have been taken back to 1888 where bathing in rivers was the order of the day. The country is now one huge pot hole , a ghoulish nightmare of arrested Development.
Hebert Wiltshire Chitepo , Lookout Masuku , Dumiso Dabengwa , Edgar Tekere & Joshua Nkomo are surely turning in their graves.
This is why the country desperately requires a New Consensus. A New Beginning. A New Great Zimbabwe!! “
