President Mugabe continues to blame the sanctions imposed on himself and a hundred or so others in his inner circle for the country’s economic meltdown. He said the sanctions induced hardships brought about many challenges and vending was one way of cushioning the situation. He continues to deny that corruption is the main cause of the country economic woes.
US President Barack Obama said corruption was the cancer holding back progress in Africa and he was right. In Zimbabwe, after 35 years of denying the cancer and attributing all the nation’s economic problems to sanctions, the cancer has had the time and space to grow and spread. It has spread now to every organ of the nation; it is not holding back progress but killing the nation.
Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds were valued at $800 billion and yet the nation is not even getting a dollar for this bounty. What has sanction to do with the looting and plunder going on here other than that the sanctions are a finger behind which those looting are hiding?
The nation is starving because the ruling elite who seized the farms have failed to maintain the productivity of the white farmers from whom the farms were seized. The white farmers did not take away the soil and the sanctions did not disrupt in any way the rainfall patterns.
Each time President Mugabe or any of his cronies blame sanctions for the country’s worsening economic meltdown he is adding insult to injury. Millions of Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty today because of the 35 years of his corruption rule and by continuing to deny there is no corruption he is insult the whole nation’s intelligence; that billions of dollars can be looted right before our own eyes year after year and yet, because we are so breathtakingly stupid, it never occurs to us that are being short changed.