The amount of paper that has been flying out of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Building of late shows that the institution knows precious little about why climatologists campaign for the paperless office. But obviously the RBZ doesn’t care about climate change hence their love for bond paper and the printer.
Look at all the dud money they have printed in the past two decades; it must have accounted for a whole Chirinda Forest of trees. In the past few days alone, their desk printers have been busy printing statements about new banking laws and statements withdrawing the statements about the new laws.
Legal experts have analysed the statements and concluded all the clauses they enunciated were illegal. This comes after no-less-a-person than our owner himself took the bold step of announcing these measures in the dark. It seems the country is back to dark “eGonomics” or what former RBZ governor Gideon Gono called “casino economics”.
Peculiar crime As Muckraker wrote this piece, young Sybeth Musengezi was still languishing in the cells more than a week after he was arrested for a peculiar crime. Ten years ago, when he was 27 years old, he joined the ruling Zanu PF party, but in doing so gave them a wrong detail; he did not reside at House Number 4315 Hatcliffe Extension as he made them believe. Zanu PF, being a party that truly believes in the rule of law, doesn’t like such deceit.
Few 27-year-olds are of a fixed aboard in Zimbabwe, so young Sybeth was very likely a “lodger”: someone who hops from house to house for accommodation as soon as he/she falls out with the landlord or fails to pay his/her rentals.
Now Muckraker’s warning to all Zanu PF card holders who are of no fixed aboard, especially the very young ones, is to quickly surrender their Zanu PF cards and run, because they are deemed criminal.
Better still, don’t even surrender it, just burn it, because it has become incriminating evidence. And by the way, needless to say, give your vote elsewhere!
Poor Sekeramayi Poor Sydney Sekeramayi is heavily in debt, to the tune of a quarter million green dollars. That’s no little money. So he has been brought huffing and puffing before the courts which Muckraker finds humiliating for someone who was once tipped to succeed founding president Robert Mugabe.oor Sydney Sekeramayi is now in the cold. “It’s cold out there,” a former minister in the Zanu PF government once warned anyone who would dare cross roads with Zanu PF.
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One is reminded of him weeping like a kid years ago when his godfather General Solomon Mujuru was burned to a cinder in suspicious circumstances. Poor Sekeramayi must have realised then that was the end of the road for him.
“As a law-abiding nation, Zimbabwe will never harbour criminals and welcomes findings from the DNA samples extracted from the fugitive.”
But, interestingly, what was he thinking when he borrowed such a huge amount of money promising to pay it all back in a matter of weeks? We know he believes in witchcraft. Remember him sitting unshod in a hill in Chinhoyi clapping and ululating as diesel oozed from a rock?
Birds of a feather Rumours that Rwandan genocide protagonist Protais Mpiranya was hiding in Zimbabwe circulated in Zimbabwe for many years. Some of the rumours even pinpointed his residence to Norton, a satellite town 20 minutes from Harare. But no, our government didn’t know anything about it even though it was common knowledge that Mpiranya had fought alongside the Zimbabwe Defence Forces during the DRC war that began in 1998.
Reports now say he even ran a small start-up in Harare which flopped. Still Zimbabwean authorities were not aware of this. Of course, they now have an alibi; he was using a pseudonym, Sambao Ndume. Better still, the new dispensation was not in charge, it must be Robert Mugabe’s fault.
“As a law-abiding nation, Zimbabwe will never harbour criminals and welcomes findings from the DNA samples extracted from the fugitive,” Foreign Affairs minister Frederick Shava said in a statement last Sunday.
He added that the government of Zimbabwe cooperated with UN investigators into Mpiranya’s case.
But tell us about the other dictator who has been hiding in Zimbabwe for decades — Mengistu Haile Mariam — who is also a fugitive from justice.
An Ethiopian court verdict found him guilty of genocide in absentia. His government is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 500 000 to two million Ethiopians, mostly during the 1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia.
Mpiranya’s numbers of the dead are around 800 000; they are therefore birds of a feather. So what will the excuse be when the international justice system comes for him? Mugabe again!
Meanwhile Zimbabwe continues to be, not only a dictatorship in its own right, but also a refuge for some of the world’s most horrible genocidaires.
Price wars The Herald had this screamer midweek: Suspension of duty on basic goods excites consumers. The story’s import was that people, including ordinary citizens, with free funds could now import basic foodstuffs duty-free.
Blaming manufacturers, the story said they were inflating prices unnecessarily because they were getting cheap money from the RBZ auction. There might be an element of truth in this, but the scrapping of tariffs is unlikely to help the person in the street.
It seems the shortage of such commodities as cooking oil is universal, attributed mainly to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Brits too are crying over shortages.
The prices of cooking oil in the countries from where Zimbabweans mostly buy foodstuffs, have also shot up. Cooking oil prices in South Africa are not very different from those in Zimbabwe at US$6,52 for two litres; in Botswana, US$9,27; while in Zambia it is US$5,70.
In Zimbabwe it ranges from US$5,72 to US$6,95, depending on the brand. So before Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and the Herald make people ululate about the dropping of customs duty they should alert them of these facts. The solution lies in supporting as far as possible local manufacturers so that they sell their products at honest prices.
But hey, the triumvirate — President Emmerson Mnangagwa, John Mangudya and Mthuli — are know-it-alls.
