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President Mugabe

Tafara Shumba Correspondent

It only takes an insane sports reporter to rush to the newsroom at half-time and write a full time story basing on the present results. The time frame for the jobs promise is 2018 and it is only 2016.

There has been a resolute effort by the opposition political parties and their allies to try to discredit every word and promise President Mugabe makes to the nation.

However, those who accuse President Mugabe and Zanu-PF of being masters of empty promises are even guiltier of the same offence.

They are the proverbial men who will do better if they removed the plank in their own eyes before trying to take out a speck of dust from President Mugabe’s eye.

The private media, NewsDay and Daily News in particular, are dedicating acres of space to lay blame on President Mugabe for the promises which they say were never fulfilled.

Screamers such as “Beware of ZANU- PF promises and lies” and “Mugabe a master of empty promises” among others, were recently awash in the private media.

The first headline was an attempt to discredit Cde Saviour Kasukuwere’s pledge to give out residential stands to about 1 500 youths in every constituency.

This pledge has rattled the MDC-T, whose dominance in urban constituencies is set to be gravely diminished by that socio-economic initiative.

Contrary to what is being said, the move is not a political gimmick because the intended beneficiaries are youths across the political divide. The opposition camp is always petrified by the economic resurrection of Zimbabwe for they thrive on crises.

The second sensational headline is based on the dubious research from the equally dubious South African-based think tank called NKC.

Following President Mugabe’s promise to review civil servants’ salaries in line with the poverty datum line (PDL), NKC rushed to cast doubt on that pledge.

That pledge was not made to NKC or MDC-T but to the civil servants who can be, at least justified if they utter those statements.

However, the civil servants can never doubt President Mugabe for they know he is a man of his word. He has kept promises that he made to them before.

President Mugabe overturned Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s decision to suspend bonuses for civil servants and guaranteed that they would get them without fail.

Indeed the civil servants got their bonuses and some are still getting them.

Even during the inclusive Government, President Mugabe overruled the then Minister of Finance Tendai Biti’s declaration of freezing salary increment for Government workers. So if that research was meant to incite civil servants against the President, NKC has chosen the wrong target.

In any case, why would people count on researches done by foreign institutes, which are not fully acquainted with the real situation on the ground?

NKC and other opposition elements indict the President for, among other alleged misdemeanours, failure to create 2,2 million jobs and to resuscitate the economy as promised in the election manifesto.

It is quite outlandish that some people make headlines on half-time results.

It only takes an insane sports reporter to rush to the newsroom at half-time and write a full time story basing on the present results. The time frame for the jobs promise is 2018 and it is only 2016.

The game is still on as there are still two more years to fulfil the electoral promises.

Even if ZANU-PF Government fails to reach the target of 2,2 million jobs, it is not a crime. It is not an offence to dream big. Those were just projections, which even the business can make and fail to meet thereafter.

It pains to hear the MDC-T “compassionately” talking about 20 000 people who were left jobless as a result of the Supreme Court ruling last year.

Their own “Advocate”, Nelson Chamisa fought tooth and nail for employers to have sweeping powers to dismiss workers willy-nilly as happened with the reported 20 000. One can be forgiven for viewing it as a sabotage operation to derail the attainment of ZANU-PF’s two million jobs target. Such hypocrisy coming from a purported workers’ party.

President Mugabe has been keeping his promises ever since he became a political figure.

He left his lucrative profession to join the war where he promised to bring an independent Zimbabwe, which he successfully did.

The promises he made during the war are finding their fulfilment in, among others, the land reform programme, and economic empowerment initiatives. Zimbabwe prides itself of its highest literacy rate in Africa, itself a fulfilled war time promise.

During his meeting with the war veterans, the President promised to improve their welfare. These promises are being fulfilled.

He promised the nation that nobody would die of the El Nino-induced drought. True to his word, Government has so far procured 700 000 metric tonnes of grain from Zambia for drought relief programmes.

Ironically, it is Morgan Tsvangirai, the Trojan Horse that NKC and the private media are attempting to prop up, who has been subjecting people to serious empty promises.

Tsvangirai has been promising people that his party is the panacea to the country’s economic challenges. He told people he was promised an injection of some billions of dollars to resuscitate the economy.

The year 2009 was an acid test for Tsvangirai’s commitment. The promised injection never materialised. The MDC-T team that joined Government instead squandered the little money they found in Government coffers.

It’s too early to forget about Tsvangirai’s double dipping scandal, Biti’s US$20 million IMF Special Drawing Rights, Elton Mangoma-NOOA fuel scam, graft in the councils and embezzlement of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) among a myriad of scandals.

All they did was to claim credit for the success that Zanu-PF scored before they even joined the inclusive Government.

One classical example is the introduction of multi-currency regime and the subsequent economic stability. It was a brain child of the then acting Minister of Finance, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, who introduced it in January 2009, two weeks before the inclusive Government came into being.

A US journalist who writes for a US publication, the FP, Erin Conway-Smith writes: “Many Zimbabweans credit Morgan Tsvangirai for the relative peace and economic stability in the country.

“The country’s stability has nothing to do with Tsvangirai but, instead the adoption of the US dollar and an increase in foreign aid.”

As a campaign tool, Tsvangirai also promised hefty salaries for civil servants.

“If we are to successfully address our nation’s humanitarian crisis, we must first address the urgent plight of our civil servants,” said Tsvangirai, a few hours after his inauguration. Up to the time of his exit from Government, Tsvangirai had not addressed the plight of the restive and poor civil servants.

He even scoffed at their demand for a pay rise.

Manuel Nyawo, one of the civil servants union leaders, who had engaged Tsvangirai over the issue of salary increment, was quoted in The Herald of February 15, 2012 saying: “He (Tsvangirai) was not clear as to what Government was doing or intend to do to solve our problems.

“In fact, he told us that he is not Government that puts food on the table for civil servants. He told us that we were expecting too much and for us to get anything soon was daydreaming.”

Who then is the real master of empty promises?