New Chinese Loan to Zimbabwe

They must be having a laugh in Beijing right now as they have managed again to increase their current asset figure in the loan made to a small African country at the southernmost tip, next to it actually to the tune of $100 millions. I am ecstatic that we now have $100 million worth of new equipement that will help improve hospitals' capacity to help people seeking help. I guess everyone should be clapping their hands and if they can get near him, slap the president in the back and congratulate him for a job well done. China's main aim is to make money, lend money and own whoever it lends money to. America is in books as a huge debtor and when I come to think of it, I think the clever Chinese may have gotten Mugabe to sign the papers for those medical vehicles and machines and bring them with a payment note attached, maybe in the form of diamonds. Why did we not get to have the Chinese give us the diamonds in exchange of the diamonds without the loan? Could we not have arm twisted them into supplying what we need for them to mine our minerals, send their Chinese defense to Chiadzwa and mine our stones. How is the appropriation ratio of the produce at Chiadzwa given the number of companies involved, plus the ministers and their business partners? What trickles finally to the coffers of the Ministry of Mines is loose change really.

Looking at the Chinese deal, it still is rather an unfair arrangement as the Chinese have a well known reputation for selling to Africa and other third world countries their sub-standard goods which will hardly last any long. I bet you, the equipment will long be commissioned out of service due to inoperability as the loan would still require payment. What president Mugabe should have done or perhaps he did, to request manufacturer warranty on those products so that the loan will be repaid without much grumbling or anything of that sort. Other than that, it is but a rubbish deal. We should really make sure that the number of years that equipment is in use is recorded in order to be deemed useful or else, we were shortchanged, kudos to Mr Xi Jinping and your team!

A Nation of Jokers

So this is what we get? While the country's industry is continuously plunging deeper into paralysis, politicians are running around, first trash-talking each other to the applauding naive masses who have absolutely nothing to do with their cat and mouse games but think that they do. It is disheartening really, to say the least, how the gullibility levels in Zimbabwe have actually skyrocketed while wit has plummeted. I say this, to say this; As the first lady went around the country, giving wry narratives about her opponents, consolidating her grasp of the party headed by her frail president husband, creating the great rift while at it, that saw big names in the ZANU PF camp like Mujuru, Mutasa and Gumbo get expelled from a party that they were with since time immemorial, in other words, a party that groomed them to be adept at what they have been doing till then, Nothing and thievery.

So these fellas who lost their rather protected positions in a party that has like a tick sucked the lifeblood out of Zimbabwe feel short-changed and have run to the courts. A paper in the country reported that Gumbo knows his former boss is a lier and wants to call him for that. I believe Mugabe didn't wake up a lier a day after his 91st birthday. He has been one all the years that people have brutally murdered others for daring to stand with the feeble attempts of opposition parties to oust him from power. Now they are fighting viciously, for their sake, not for anybody's or the country's for that matter. For this incident to even make the headlines is utter rubbish and our tolerance levels are stretched loose now as we do not really know what to prioritize. The economy is suffering as Mugabe, with the help of his recently feverishly motivated wife, has managed to try and make the presidential post of the country more or less an inheritable throne, not a position that has to be earned by merit. And people clap and cheer to that. At this point, it is rather futile to play party politics because all hands are needed on board to change the course of economic direction the country has been on for quite a while. I really think all the men and women who were involved in the running of affairs during this period carried out some treasonous acts that they should own up to and to continue looking up to them hoping that by grace they may change for the better is rather a futile and self-defeating hope. All signs have showed that they are pathetic failures who hide it by blame, arrogance and brutality. What a blatant liberty?!

Well, as again a country, which has somewhat a lot to do to help itself instead of selling out to other countries that have it figured out. Our solution is but a pragmatic approach to everything. First of, the president needs to resign immediately. He is old and can certainly not make sensible decisions. If this hurts his feelings, the more a reason for him to leave office. He has been showing more signs that he is being controlled by his wife to make rather irrational decisions. How can a country of quite intelligent people be held hostage by a man losing his wit? We all can't be like his bootlicking yes sayers like Gumbo and the rest of them were till they fell out. The man has done his part, good and bad and he must own up to every bit of it. The land reform was not a bad idea, given the wealth inequalities between blacks and whites. But then that birthed a problem of its own when his upper echelon ministers took to looting and complete disregard of their duties. A new breed of colonizers emerged. Gluttonous men, women loving breakers of the law who drove the country into malady- a problem quite prevalent in African economies.

If we continue to play the party song and nod our heads to anything that rambles out of these humans' mouths, we will sink deeper into trouble. They have fooled us into believing that they are the solution, and that no one else has the ability to change things for the better, and that's some animal farm shite right there.

Bunking in ANC's crib.

Back in '94, the ANC led by the late (peace be upon his soul, I mean may he rest in peace) Nelson Rolihaha Mandela negotiated a peaceful handover of government duties from Frederick W. de Klerk's administration and there was new hope. This new dawn shone in promise to the black folk driving away the darkness of the ruthless apartheid system. There was change indeed, blacks began patronizing areas previously reserved for white South Africans, economically, they started getting jobs that they previously could not because of the restrictive racist set by the Boers through the BEE policy implementation. Fast track to the recent years and narrow it down to just a single incident; late last

(image from enca.com)

year, 2014, when the outspoken former ANC Youth league leader's party allegedly orchestrated a Zimbabwean war veterans land grab style in Nellmapius just outside Pretoria. A few of the many homeless people in the country residing in and aorund the city of Pretoria seized a stretch of land belonging to the government, bought from a white farmer sometime ago and demarcated it as a territory for their residence and actually gave it a name in honor of the man who is an emerging voice of the voiceless and homeless in South Africa, Julius Malema. Government officials claim that this land was earmarked for housing development to benefit the same people who had attempted to take it over. Their patience had worn out, I guess, for since time immemmorial, they had been told the same old story and there was no action to back government officials words. The 80-something black South Africans in South Africa have about 10 or so per cent of the total acreage of land in the country. Now that is an unequal distribution given also the fact that one of the promises of the ANC government when it came to power two decades ago was to address the land question. The attempted land grab was quelled by the police but afterwards, ANC political officials were all pointing fingers of blame for this at Julius Malema. He may be indeed putting one of Africa's greatest economies at risk if the majority of South Africans pick on this cue and go all out to occupy the white owned farms. However, he is not the only one to blame. While they were making merry with money, power and women, ANC officials rather, sort of forgot about the man at the bottom of the ladder, and the power that he may wield if he decides to rise and cause disturbances in the economy. Now they must be running around, the Zuma administration trying to lay their hands on a solution but they very well know where the solution is- appeasing the men and women, and in the process Julius Malema and they hate to do that, that's why they will rather wait and play the waiting game till things explode. The results will be seriously grievous and the ramifications may see the country going down the same road as Zimbabwe. In the latter, things rather went south and many people scattered down south and everywhere else but in South Africa, where the population is somewhat inclined towards violence, this may not end on a rather merry note but could cause bloodshed.

Zuma may need to move as fast as he can to come up with a rather convincing plan to stall things and at the same time give confidence to the business world and perhaps his paymasters who cannot stand to lose as hard as the counterparts further up north did since the turn of the millennium. Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe began his job as the chairman of the African Union which has embarked on working to achieve a long term plan ..'Africa's Agenda 2063' meant to maximize Africa's benefit from its vast resources instead of exporting (or allowing exploitation by western countries) leaving the continent impoverished. This year, the organization's short term plan is the 'Year of Women's Empowerment'. It's a good start and we hopefully wish that this is not just on paper as has many plans been.