The Herald recently reported that “bigwigs” aren’t paying their electricity bills. Below is a response from a Kubatana subscriber … a good illustration of the disgust many ordinary Zimbabweans feel toward politicians in this country ….

In light of the revelations by the Minister of Energy and Power Development that quite a number of top government officials and Ministers owe ZESA amounts not less than US$10 000 in unpaid bills, it is saddening to note that the same people sit and discuss how underperforming the institution is yet they are the main cause of our worries. We have suffered a lot as a result of load shedding and being disconnected yet the ‘haves’ ie the rich continue to evade paying their bills. For how long shall the ‘have not’ ie the poor continue to subsidise the rich in the name of the agricultural revolution? It is a fact that when they applied for land they indicated they had the financial muscle to carry out farming activities, what has happened now? An investment in a mini hydro power worth US$100 000 in the Himalaya area in Manicaland has benefited more than 200 household’s with each household paying not more than US$5 per month in electricity bills. If the monies owed to ZESA were to be invested in such initiatives how many households would benefit and how much in savings would be raised for the betterment of the common person on the street. It is so sad to be urinated on whilst we are alive.
- Percy, Harare

Just when I was beginning to believe that all politicians were corrupt, money grabbing charlatans, and that politics was a misnomer for profit-making exercise, along comes Minister of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Eric Matinenga.

Matinenga is holding his peers in government and Parliament accountable for the public funds disbursed to them from the Constituency Development Fund. Unlike members of Parliamentary Portfolio Committees that investigated shady land deals and the disappearance of diamonds Mr Matinenga is doing what he was mandated by the people of Zimbabwe to do – his job.

This morning’s papers report that Matinenga’s ministry has reported those legislators who have failed to account for the funds to the Office of the President and Cabinet as well as the Prime Minister’s office. The Anti-Corruption Commission is also expected to investigate the legislators.

The legislators who failed to account for the $50 000 from the fund are:

Sekai Holland – Minister of State for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, MDC-T Senator, Mabvuku-Tafara
Lucia Matibenga – Minister of Public Service, MDC-T MP for Kuwadzana
Douglas Mombeshora – Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare, ZANU PF MP Mhangura
Marvelous Khumalo  – MDC-T MP, St. Mary’s
Peter Chanetsa – ZANU PF MP, Hurungwe North,
Edward Chindori-Chininga – ZANU PF MP, Guruve South
Naison Nemadziva – MDC-T MP, Buhera South
Franco Ndambakuwa – ZANU PF MP, Magunje
Abraham Sithole – ZANU PF MP, Chiredzi East
Lawrence Mavima – ZANU PF MP, Zvishavane -Runde

Minister Matinenga may not be very popular in Parliament after this, but he’s got my vote.

It is Tuesday evening, Valentine’s Day and for some reason I find myself watching Oscar Pambuka’s Melting Pot. In the studio he has a two chaps discussing youth empowerment. One is – perhaps predictably –  from Upfumi Kuvadiki, that notorious anti-investment outfit that shares the same degenerate  ideologies as Mbare’s Chipangano vigilantes.

It reminds one of how so many things are wrong in this country where political instruction from the elders has moved from the very tenets that saw young men once upon time in 1912 form Africa’s oldest political movement, or what stirred Ndabaningi and his contemporaries as valiant young men to take up the fight for a greater good, yet you have to ask yourself what these Upfumis have in common with the Robert Mugabe of 1963. What place do they have in Zimbabwe’s political history other than tales of grief, tales of how they broke down the walls which other compatriots tried to build? Has it not been recorded that the coming into government of the firm hand of Tendai Biti “coincided” with the economic stability that eluded the Zanu PF elites for more than two decades? This is no way is to extol the abilities of any mortal, but the facts stare right back us.

The language of the Upfumis is about empowering the youth, giving them USD5,000 to start their own business, economic emancipation, and a new form of capitalism. If only this were true. At least Oscar Pambuka to his credit did ask about the abuse of the funds where the young patriots are reportedly using the funds to buy crappy chattels. But still rather predictably, an Upfumi Kuvadiki rep was quick to dispute this claim, going on and on about lies being told about young beneficiaries of this largess. I have said this before that Zanu PF has made extinct the spirit of hard work: youths now know only too well that hard work is an alien virtue; after all, they are from that amoral stock where killing people who do not agree with your political beliefs are indeed a virtue! Young people are being taught that all you have to do is line up on the Zanu PF ticket and claim the resources of the land as your own simply based on the name of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF.

A rather daft university student said to me the other day he had been elected into the Zanu PF youth chairmanship of some sort, and I asked him if he believed all that nonsense that came with allegiance to the party of blood. All he had to say for himself was: “My friend, you never know. What we want is to eat.” I shut my ears as he continued talking. And you just have to see the people who speak on behalf of the youth: fat cheeks and arrogant mouths when we all know the penury the majority of young people here live with as they continue the dangerous trek to South Africa despite reports that their fellow countrymen are being shoved into the Black Maria and deported as personas non grata. That is not to mention hundreds of thousands who seek honest lives by enrolling for higher education only to be kicked out of classes because they cannot afford the extortionate fees. Small wonder then that for the soul-less types, taking over white-owned mines and other business concerns is too good an El Dorado to resist. You still have to ask yourself how this youth empowerment drive seeks to address these issues as obviously not all youths are anarchists who want to reap where they did not sow. These clowns are just obsessed with being wealthy but apparently have no clue how to get there without taking over what someone else built ages ago.  They obviously do not have the knowledge gleaned from Aesop’s fables and the wisdom of their own father about imaginary riches. A bunch of morons by any other name. But I know they read this and say: “screw you; we are claiming what rightfully belongs to us!”

Why now you bozos?

The Daily News has reported that The Transport and Infrastructural Development Ministry headed by Nicholas Goche has only managed to resurface 11.6 kilometres of road in 2011.  Last year Goche’s Ministry collected a total of $80 million dollars on behalf of ZINARA.

Presumably that 11.6 kilometres combines Borrowdale Road (Our Dear Leaders way home), which underwent extensive repair and repainting last year and some patch jobs on the road to Zvimba. No doubt sitting in Cabinet Our Dear Leader has even congratulated Minister Goche on an excellent road network.

Police yesterday banned a public meeting in the MDC’s New Zimbabwe lecture series which was to have been addressed by South African economist Patrick Bond, the topic being “Global Financial and Ecological Crises, and Implications for Third World Countries.”

As one observer commented about the ban: “Hundreds had turned up for the meeting only to be greeted by baton wielding anti-riot police. Is this the state of the GNU we want?” The real question however is did we ever say we wanted any kind of GNU? The people of Zimbabwe didn’t vote for a compromise. The politicians decided to force one on us when none of them could get their own way.

Meanwhile, “The Principals” (Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara), signatories to the Global Political Agreement met for 2 ½ hours yesterday to “deliberate key issues affecting the country.”

Amongst other things, they discussed elections, media reforms the land audit, and sticky issues like the Attorney General’s Act and Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri. The gist of the statement after the meeting? Yes, these are issues. And something should happen about them.

Somehow, I wouldn’t have thought that “something” would have involved banning a public discussion. . .

The Zimbabwean opposition, that tired bunch, would first need to reinvent itself before it could lead an uprising.
And then there is Zimbabweans’ complicated relationship with Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Many suffer from a political version of Stockholm syndrome. Zanu-PF not only liberated Zimbabwe from colonial rule, before everything started unraveling, it also delivered some measure of prosperity. The Mugabe brand is a mix of irreparably damaged and historically glorious, and that confusing combination serves as a psychological block against revolt.

Read more from the New York Times blog