By Patrick Guramatunhu- President Mnangagwa, his Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube, and other Zanu PF leaders have promised economic recovery pegged at the country attaining middle income status by 2030, “Vision 2030” as they called it.
The regime has since found this a hard sell given the country’s worsening economic situation. And so the regime has moved the mirage much nearer, to 2023.
“Much progress has been made towards the achievement of a US$12billion Mining Industry by 2023,” boasted President Mnangagwa.
“My recent visit to Hwange revealed unassailable progress in the implementation of the coal to hydrocarbons development plans where it emerged that the country has over 5 000 megawatts of power in the pipeline, which should see Zimbabwe not only becoming self-sufficient in electrical power generation by 2023, but also a net exporter of electricity.”
Kariba Dam North (Zambia side) has 4×150 turbines and 2×180 giving a total of 960 and South (Zimbabwe side) 6×125 and 2×150 giving a total of 1 050 and a combined total of 1 626 MW.
Hwange Thermal Power Station has 4×120 and 2×220 giving a total of 920 MW.
The outgoing Smith regime left plans to build Batoka Gorge Dam, between Victoria Falls and Kariba Dam and to add two more turbines at Hwange Power Station boosting generation capacity by another 1 000 MW each. 40 years after independence none of these projects are yet to start.
Indeed, Zimbabwe has rarely, if ever at all, generated at anywhere near the installed generation capacity of 1 970 MW because a number of turbines and/or some related equipment are out of service. It is not only the hospitals, schools, roads, etc. that are in varying stages of rot and decay because of neglect; other infrastructure equipment too has been neglected!
“Things will never be the same again. We are restructuring and reforming our health delivery system. We want to rebuild the structures from village to referral level. Things will never be the same again, but we must work together,” said VP Chiwenga last month, soon after taking over the addition responsibility as Minister of Health and Child Care.
“We have already identified the problems and we do not want a repeat of what was happening before.”
Needless to say there has been no change at all; the health service crisis is still there, the nurses strike is now in its third month, the country has still not ramp up the covid-19 testing, etc., etc. The chronic rot and decay of Mugabe days is still there; the November 2017 military coup changed nothing of substance. Nothing!
Mnangagwa’s promise to increase the country’s electricity generating capacity to 5 000 MW, more than 2.5 times the present, is, like I have said above, a mirage! But why has the mirage been moved to 2023? What is so special about 2023?
Well 2023 is the year Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold the next elections.
Mnangagwa and Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections, the regime is illegitimate and hence the reason Zimbabwe is a pariah state. No one wants to do business with a corrupt and lawless pariah state.
The only sure way to end the curse of rigged elections is for the country to implement the democratic reforms. It is clear Zanu PF will never implement the reforms and reform itself out of office and so the only way the reforms can be implemented is for Zanu PF to step down so others can carry out this key task.
What Mnangagwa and company are hoping to do is seduce the people with the promise of fully functional health care service, 5 000 MW generating capacity, etc., etc. by 2023 if they let Zanu PF remain in office until then.
The truth is if Zanu PF remain in office, on its own or in the proposed new GNU with MDC, until 2023; we can be 100% certain of three things.
- no meaningful democratic reforms will be implemented.
- Zanu PF will blatantly rig the 2023 elections landing us in the fix we are in right now.
- Three, needless to add the economy, health service, power generation, etc. will still be in the same sorry state they are in now or worse. There are all empty promises to buy Zanu PF time to remain in office until 2023 elections for the purpose of rigging those elections; nothing more, nothing less.