The other view…..

The propaganda and brainwash songs of the chimurenga promised people a life that only a few have experienced. I seem to remember well into independence there was a very popularised slogan,”health for all by 2000″. Unfortunately that dream remained what it was…a dream if it did not degerate into a nightmare.

That obviously was not the only failure in policy and development. The party defined itself in two terms. It is a party of blood. It does not want madhosinyongoro. It lived to its definition over the years but unfortunately,I can’t define madisnyongoro but I believe it has resemblance to jambanja, which again I can’t define.
In alphabetical order here they are the failures.
Education:
One of the success stories the supporters of zimbabwe’s independence point at is education. Upper tops helped raise secondary education by thousands and I have seen people who had it not been for upper tops they wouldn’t have read for o levels. But the system was set up and suffered neglect as soon as the educationists in the ruling party left. I might be wrong but I always credit zimbabwe’s education story to Dzingai B Mutumbuka, Fay Chung and the late Naomi Nhiwatiwa. I could be wrong I admit but it is my wrongness.

Food:
The greatest disasters in food production in Zimbabwe are, Robert himself, Joseph Made, war veterans and white farmers. These 4 institutions killed Zimbabwean agriculture and I will always say this. For Robert he is an ex-officio executive of every sector and the failure of any is at his guard. He also has a problem of not knowing what people eat. He said Zimbabweans have no maize but they have surpass of potatoes which is what they are eating. Made was longest serving agriculture minister having overseen the death of ARDA. A man fails to run an agricultural monopoly and is rewarded with running the national portfolio?? War vets? When you think the world belongs to you that alone is crazy. For anyone to believe a country is theirs in the sense that a wife is a husband’s is just over the top. White farmers should have taken government to task long before they were booted. They should have led in their own security by engaging gvt and help create more positive policy. They should have realised they were zimbabwe’s and refused to be seen as settlers. Settlers were their ancestors not them. They failed to make that affirmation and obviously lost the recognition.
Health:
Recently I learnt that people actually buy drip when admitted in hospital. Recently I browsed the finance minister’s budget statement. The health budget is totally unproportional compared with the defence budget. This is considering that Zimbabwe has never been at war ever. Gukurahundi was not a war. In the president’s own words it was a moment of madness. A moment when leaders became mad. A moment when soldiers went so mad they saw civilian cousins as enemies. Anywhere a nation at peace with itself and has consistently over budgeted for soldiers than for a deteriorated health system is purely cruel failure. A high tech hospital was built in Bulawayo. I am reliably informed that hospital has never been used now over 10 years since completion. Hospitals and clinics are poorly staffed and equipped. A community in matebeleland had an ox drawn cart for an ambulance which too has become unserviceable. Aids,cholera and other diseases have played havoc with the people.life expectancy, though debatable is visibly very low. It is a country with very few old people.
Transport:
In the earlier days of independence, Zimbabwe had a reliable airline supported by many other international birds in its skies. It had a rail service that ran to a timetable controlled by modern equipment and powered by electricity. There was a bus service for urbanites that was overwhelmed by urban population boom but still reliable.then things started going down as government depended on emergency taxis. Emergency taxis were any station wagon registered to carry 1 person in the front seat,4 people in the passenger seat and 4 in the boot.yes in the boot. That’s the time when Harare-chitungwiza rail was retrieved from Rhodesian archives. It was also a time some late comrade suggested they could introduce canals and boats in Harare even telling the nation below Harare is a massive river much greater than mukuvisi. I have no reason to stress how shamefully shambolic transport has become in Zimbabwe.
Water:
The water project was clearly cut for the Zimbabwean rulers. They just had to maintain the urban supplies expanding them in phases. They only had to capitalise rural water,insisting donors supported more sustainable systems than a borehole. Who ever condemned Zimbabwean rural folk to hard borehole water? Independence was to bring equal opportunities,equal resources,life sustaining development focused on the populace.
Instead as regards water supply and management, Zimbabwean independence totally failed. Some boreholes, hate them as I do failed dismally. The seemingly established urban water systems eventually aged and either collapsed or became inadequate. Rural boreholes came to towns and cities and some unimaginable happened. Urban people had to find containers to carry and store water in instead of just turning a tap. With water tragedy also comes toilet cleanliness. Public toilets in most towns are shocking. The toilets at bus stations,train stations,markets are just a disgrace. A massive failure of independence,yet I have not covered all.

I believe that a lot of what councils make from Parking can easily be illegal money. Illegal in the sense that parking motorists get irregularly ticketed and those who don’t want to be bothered just quietly pay. I don’t know what councils teach train or brief their parking enforcement officers but the following is one I found appalling to say the least.

I had to visit some offices in London street Reading. All I wanted was to drop a letter. While parking my car I noticed the parking attendant walking like away from my direction but on the opposite side of the street. I walked into the offices and was told I had to see someone rather than just leave a letter.

I went back and paid a pound into the park meter, at the same time noticing the parking guy now on my side of the street. He was talking to some woman. After paying I put my ticket on the dashboard on top of a parking disc I use at work.

I then went back into the office where my appointment was ready for me. Business did not take long and in less than five minutes I was done. I left the office and noticed the park attendant loitering around my car and a grey golf parked in front of my car.
I knew I still had plenty time so it didn’t bother me that he was by my car. I then chose to walk to the supermarket at the end of the road.when I returned from there my car had a ticket,my ticket was/still 3 minutes valid and the attendant was gone.

I located a different park attendant and called him to explain the incident and witness it for me.
I naively asked him to call his office and ask them to send back the offending attendant and instead he was told off and told to tell me to-appeal in the normal way. I appealed with details and the reply came refusing my appeal. As it stands I am expecting to be dragged to a tribunal. At whose expense do these tribunals sit? What does the park attendant get for causing such pointless trouble?

I will update you on the outcome of this example of ineptitude,wanton abuse of authority and disregard of commercial and administrative ethos by those we trust with our civic order.

The way Joyce was treated is just the way thousands of widows have been treated in Africa and indeed in Zimbabwe for many years. Widow or chirikadzi (Shona) umfelwakazi (ndebele) gets treated with all the vices cowards feared to confront the husband during his life.

I am not zanu(pf) and will probably never be. I do not particularly endear myself to the likes of Mai Mujuru, but boy! She was treated like rubbish is treated….kukandwa kudurunhuru.but how clean is mai mujuru?

I can think of 2 incidents where I can say uuhmm, wake wayilahla. Sometime in the 80s I was working in the city centre of Harare. At lunch time I passed by,a place I think is called town hall or something. There was a group of women being adressed by a woman. The woman was Teurairopa Nhongo. I didn’t care much what she was telling people but in that public,she was mega phoning her audience with poo like,”….;vaMugabe mwari wedu wepano pasi….” Literally mugabe our god on earth. And now? Chaakumuruma chIBaal chake, wanna manje!

We as a nation could have had the pride of having mobile phone technology ahead of many countries. We had a brilliant entrepreneur coming up with mobile technology and was frustrated by the minister concerned. She was so biased on behalf of her god’s nephew’s company that it was nearly shocking.and called one senile old man senile. Desperately disrespectful, yet now I see. Her god is now much older than the age she called our hero senile. So she must be saying of her god,senile demented and stupid.

To her credit Mujuru is academically gifted. She was a chimbwidolike returning guerrilla wearing sting achipaparika kungedzvatsvatsva. She has grown from grade 7 plus unmarked form 2 homework to a doctor….PHD baba! Kusvika umwe ari ndoridawo. Come what may I believe Joyce akaverengera PHD yake, handinakumboti umwe haana,ok.

Ah then mai mujuru was minister in each of mugabe’s cabinets. She became a Vice President achitekenya ndebvu dzema dhara ana mzee nana msika kwaakuzonzi natypist resign or else. Zvakaoma warume.but then JB mhondavabereki yepaBulawayo akati up resident ahupananwi mumachira sesiki. Kukanzi Batai munhu.

Goche akati ahh ZANU ndeyeropa,umwe unofa…..I’ve ndiye Ava kudziisirwa mabanana ari mucho spiral. Ko mutasa, ndonzi gamatox….I hold mugabe’s security in my hands…ah chaiyechaiye kana kuti wepa photo?

For the next 5 years grace will be the most fierce woman in Africa among politicians. The 5 years after that she will wish she was not born. This is how I see the future.
Mai mujuru khala ulethemba,chennai netariro,weep with hope.