By Nomusa Garikai- The dishonest way Zanu PF has continued to hold the sanctions debate is an outrage!
“The impact has been severe and anyone who thinks that sanctions are not harming the economy is surely not telling the truth. We have had many companies directly affected and the examples are too many to mention, like Olivine which had a loan intercepted through the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In the financial sector, banks such as Standard Chartered Bank and CBZ have lost money directly as a result of sanctions. We can go on-and-on,” Said Minister Mthuli Ncube.
This is just a foolish debate in that the minister is being penny wise but billions of dollars foolish!
There was nothing to stop Olivine getting the loan from China, South Africa and one hundred one other countries, for example.
In 2016, former President Mugabe admitted that Zimbabwe was “swindled out of 15 billion dollars in diamond revenue alone”. When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe, he promised “zero tolerance to corruption”. The regime has failed to arrest even one swindler!
For all his boastful posturing on how he was going to get Zimbabwe’s economy back on track, Minister Ncube has taxed the poorest poor and yet he has yet to get one dollar of the billions of dollars from the swindlers.
Government has failed to explain what happened to US$3 billion of Command Agriculture funds. Our egotistic Minister has had no comment to make on that and many other cases of gross mismanagement and corruption! None! But, surprise, surprise has many, many things to say about sanctions!
‘We’re going to improve lives of our people,’ says Mthuli Ncube.
Zimbabwe has been in economic decline for the last 39 years and throughout that period, without failure, Zanu PF has promised the nation a better tomorrow. When the economic recovery has failed to materialise, the party has never admitted failure but focused, instead, on the mirage in the distance.
Minister Ncube’s vision 2030 middle income status is yet another mirage!
What Zimbabweans must focus on now with renewed energy and resolve is why the country has failed to remove Zanu PF from office after 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule?
We all know the answer: Zanu PF has blatantly rigged elections for the last 39 years. The party blatantly rigged last year’s elections.
What is worse, seemingly upright citizens like Professor Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, etc. knew the country was stuck with a corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship; and yet they have again and again agreed to work for the illegitimate regime and propping it up.
It is high time that these seemingly upright citizens, hypocrites who have shamelessly promised the long suffering ordinary Zimbabweans a mirage, are held to account. Since Zanu PF rigs elections, one way of holding the hypocrites’ legs to the fire is to add them to the sanctions list!