Zimpapers Logo

THE SATURDAY COLUMN
The story is told that Moses undertook the dangerous assignment to relocate the children of Israel to the Promised Land.  The Red Sea, that vast water body, presented an intractable obstacle. There was chaos and commotion at seaside.

Others faked running stomachs, looked around for scant bush shrubbery faking the need to relieve themselves and disappeared back into King Pharaoh’s hands, where they resubmitted and re-subjected themselves to slavery.

Others simply bolted in such speed that would make Usain Bolt green with envy. Others wept! Others wet themselves upon seeing the galloping armoured horses of mighty Pharaoh squeezing them against the frothy wash and swash of the sea.

Some simply told Moses, in plain words, “This isn’t working Cde Moses.” But Moses, the man favoured with retarded speech, had nothing but faith, wisdom and vision. He stuttered and still explained. They did not listen.  A few gave him the chance. Eventually, the knobkerrie made the trick and they crossed, fooling Pharaoh’s army.

Well, this is not a pie in the sky. What is our attitude to Mthuli Ncube’s Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP)? A lot of us really want us to go back to the hiatus. The economy is hitting us hard and we no longer want to go forward. We are now doubting the essence of his reform.

But we need the reforms. We are at breaking point, we are doubting his vision. Like Moses, is Mthuli being given a chance? Hell, No! Our stomachs are rumbling or we are faking a pee and want to go backwards. Let us have faith. Let us share the vision. Let us be patient with the economy. The idea of going back is a timbre we must be ashamed off. “Ye man of little faith!”

Boy, ooh boy, you bring tears to my eyes

In almost all cases it is always nice to receive a new child in the house. Birth, so we believe, gives life. But the problems come as the child starts taking baby steps. Soon, he starts breaking things, protocol, essential property, indeed valuable property. It becomes a liability.

You see, give the toddler a toy and see how its world collapses on false hope and false ambition. The excitement is too much. It is blinding and dangerous. You might see the boy trying to ride on a miniature car, all plastics and too small even for one foot. Sitting on it, even. Such are the hallucinations.

The boy’s brains become as miniscule as the baby car. So, our boy Nelson, after winning the MDC Ala-Carte (ooh, sorry Alliance) leadership uncontested at the sham congress, where votes were sold and bought like hot buns, for his subordinates, thinks the country is in his pocket. Boy, ooh boy!

Nelson Chamisa

Now this boy, God forbid, is he not a moribund pastor, given his appetite for violence? Nelson has promised to remove an elected Government and then one wonders how the pastoral etiquette flew out of the windows. And, what with the acronym Democracy to him. God, this our Creator, at times is cruel, He gives some guys brains the size of a fullstop and loud mouths. Motor mouths. Boy, ooh Boy Nelson, you bring tears to my eyes. No Nelson no! Grow up.

Guns and tearsmoke

Well, one weekly newspaper carried a story about the Zimbabwe Republic Police being armed to the teeth and hey, hell broke loose in some circles. Without giving credence to the story, it did something therapeutic. The social media, our devil incarnate, went agog, with fear and criticism. The prolificacy of their argument, is that it exposes their evil nature.

Like, seriously guys, which citizen is worried against his/her country’s security sector being well armed, unless he is a criminal of repute? It is mischief, filthy mischief, to want a weak police force. It puts us into the coppice that, if the new weaponry acquisition is true, then the criminals are wetting in their pants and quaking in their boots. Does the Maldives excursion not play out? We are not fooled. The cat has been set among the pigeons!   See how they scamper for cover.

EU and the moment of truth

It is a bad dream in the opposition camp. It does not sound like reality. The lethargy of sleep is still with them and soon as reality dawns, they will call the European Union names, bad names, superlatives and adjectives, The EU, for all it is worth politically, economically and socially in Zimbabwe has finally seen the reason to dialogue officially. Melancholic voices are coming out of the opposition. They would rather Zimbabwe does not talk to EU or EU does not talk to Zimbabwe.

The stalemate, which has worked wonders for the opposition in the form of biting sanctions, hard presses the ordinary citizens and aptly pits the citizenry against Government. They make the Government unpopular and readies people for regime change. But the EU itself has also lost business, good business and the MDC touted as the replacement for Zanu-PF has failed to remove Zanu-PF.

In fact, it does not appear the MDC-Alliance has a chance in the near future. EU, for its lack of self-sincerity, would have benefited more in the last 20 years than it did benefit on behalf of MDC.  A child who cannot read the winds of change finds himself too exposed, when the father changes direction and starts talking to an erstwhile enemy. The Villager, my brother from the other mother, could have capped this juncture with half a dozen proverbs. The wind had changed direction. Read my lips. For MDC-Alliance, the lounge is getting too hot.

Gothic businesspeople and Schrodinger’s Equation 

Have you tried walking into these shops? One wonders if we have businesspeople or some gothic horrible figures running our businesses. There is no mathematics at play there. Being the most loyal husband, my wife recently sent me to buy cooking oil. I also drive some ramshackle multi-coloured vehicle and the Toyota engine there is resilient. So, I drove to this service station, filled up my tank then entered the shop. We all know, the service station shops, are historically an epitome of expensive groceries.

The chubby one (whom I call my wife) had ordered me to buy cooking oil and it was a monstrous $22 RTGs for 2 litres. The huge supermarket next door sold the same product, by the devil’s grace, at $27 RTGS. What separated the two outlets was a nine-inch wall. What mathematics is this? This kind of mathematics even defies following the black market US$ exchange rate.

All the same, fearing the chubby one would retire me to the floor in this cold, I bought the cooking oil. Winter is never time to be disloyal to your wife, the floor is too cold. You better be on the right side and sleep on the bed. Trying to work out the pricing matrix, is Schrodinger’s Equation, very, very, very complicated and nonsensical.  But you see, these gothic characters we call our businesspeople have no heart. I doubt they have blood, too. What formula are they using? It’s all profiteering. Cry havoc!

This Government, the new dispensation that gave birth to the Second Republic, is so keen on doing and promoting good business but the businesspeople don’t know how to reciprocate.

Fervently against price control, the Government is finding itself pushed between a rock and a hard place. The Government must have started rethinking. Soon and very soon, the leash might be tightened. The businessmen should not cry foul. Not even shed a tear, for, they are inviting it. The Business Lounge is getting hot, I tell you. The Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF), the new kid on the bloc, has to fix things or the Government might fix it alone.

Could this be my own dream, given the cold weather, more men like yours truly, might soon be relegated to the floor.

Cry our beloved teachers

Well, the most hardworking among us are the civil servants. The young men and women who oil the State craft machinery are among the most hard-hit by the current economic dynamics. Austerity measures are with them, albeit not them alone. The Government, their lovely employer of choice, has tried many non-monetary things to cushion them from the biting effects of the austerity measures. May God favour the civil servants with more years on earth?  But these intelligent men and women are being cheated by labour organisation that purport to lead them.

ZIMTA has taken teachers for a ride through fake housing schemes.— File photo

News within our earshot is that the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association  (ZIMTA), has joined the legion of bogus organisations that have milked teachers dry in the past. After being duped by bogus organisations, e.g. non-existent Africa Home,  the teachers sought solace and protection from ZIMTA. But we gather, it has become a tale of from the frying pan into the fire.

Despite monthly contributions that sustain the organisation, with its leadership earning salaries that are too good to be true, the same organisation is fleecing the workers it is supposed to protect, through fake housing schemes. By the way, how much does ZIMTA chief executive Sifiso Ndlovu earn?

Sifiso Ndlovu

Now to the crux of matter, ZIMTA came up with housing schemes for teachers, especially in Mashonaland Central, where some met all payment conditions but have not been allocated the stands. The ZIMTA provincial leader there, whose surname croons a hungry lion, has been at the centre of failing to bring sanity.  In August 2016, a group was allocated stands in places like Thornicroft, Kuwadzana Phase Two, Stoneridge and Budiriro in Harare. Since then, teachers have been allocated and re-allocated stands and upon trying to build structures they have found other owners on the stand.

So systematic is the stands fraud in that, in the first place, where you applied is not where you get the stand. Secondly, you try and build and someone evicts you. There are teachers allocated land and re-allocated three or four times and there is no end in sight. Each time the teacher is being made to pay allocation fees at each new allocation.

Cry our beloved teachers! The clock continues to tick. The deductions continue towards non-existent stands. The worst evil visited recently when teachers allocated stands at Donnybrook in Mabvuku, Harare, had their homes demolished by a new owner. ZIMTA has not acted since then. Can anyone please bring sanity to ZIMTA? This is brazen theft. It is fraud. Evil fraud.