By Jane Mlambo| Former Zanu PF politburo member and cabinet minister Dr Walter Mzembi has blasted the current government led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying it has reduced Zimbabweans to worser levels than during the late former ruler Robert Mugabe.
In his independence day statement, Mzembi castigated what he said was a copy and paste approach to COVID-19 response by Mnangagwa.
Mzembi said Zimbabwe was now a military state and “an enterprising slavery nation where 90% of citizens fend for themselves in the informal sector presided over by a new master”.
“Even more paradoxical is how people, hardly three years down the line find conditions under Mugabe much better than they are now under his successor who has run the country under a laughable and largely dismissed brand payoff line of a ‘New Dispensation’ which ironically turned out to be a ‘New Deception’.
“What passed for Independence in 1980 has been a mirage of deferred dreams and aspirations by our people who were the rear guard of material, logistical, moral and reconnaissance support to the guerrillas during our war of liberation fought from the early 1960s to the end of 1979.”
He added, “Zimbabwe pretends to be in a lockdown copying and pasting responses from other countries but continues to breach international best practice and this is evident from State House right down to the village.
“We simply do not have the humility as a people anymore to submit to expert knowledge let alone to each other.
“Added to this is a lockdown that ignored safety nets for the vulnerable who have now surpassed 50% of our population.
“For them it’s a choice between dying of Hunger or Covid-19.
“A national forage for basics like MEALIE MEAL has disrupted all we have been taught about social distancing, fortunately God has been merciful and our infection rates have been minimal.”
“Politically, we have been bankrupted by the November 2017 coup which contrary to expectations reversed our democratic gains, upset constitutionalism and statecraft and firmly established a Military State.”
Mzembi was forced to skip the country 2018 when the current government opened corruption allegations against former Mugabe allies in what was believed to be politically targeted prosecutions