via Now that tollgate fees have doubled, we are free! – NewsDay Zimbabwe July 8, 2014
Now that tollgate fees have been doubled, we should expect deeper and bigger potholes on our roads for there is a high correlation between high revenue and poor service delivery in this country. The more revenue collected, the more poverty we experience and the bigger the fat cats’ pockets become.
These are the signs of our times. We should not complain lest we are accused of “derailing the gains of our liberation”.
Yes, we have been liberated. We are now free. We all recall how colonial leader Ian Smith, whom we were liberated from, was the embodiment of oppression and repression. But now we can celebrate because not only were we liberated from Smith’s shackles, but Smith himself is safely dead.
We are now free. We are free to watch those who liberated us exercise their sovereign right by plundering the country’s resources. We are now free to find pleasure in poverty while vicariously enjoying the plunderers’ wealth by watching them go on expensive shopping trips.
We are now free to drink contaminated water. We are now free to get beaten up for holding diverging views during election periods.
We must not complain. We must recall that while those who liberated us sacrificed their own sons and daughters in the struggle, the rest of us were on holiday.
Who else can stand up and say: “I lost a son or daughter in the liberation struggle”?
Everyone else only joined them at independence. So it is their inalienable right to plunder the country’s resources and devise schemes to take away the little that we have. We now have the freedom of watching people of dubious morality accorded heroes’ status.
We should be happy to smell the stench of freedom coming from flowing sewage and uncollected garbage in our areas. We are now free to experience power outages, company closures and poverty.
We should be grateful for typhoid and cholera outbreaks
engendered by poor or non-existent service delivery for these remind us that those responsible for service delivery are too busy pocketing our monies to notice.
We should not query the integrity of those who rule us. They are not answerable to us.
As long as they can sign-off “Obedient Daughter” or something to that effect in their correspondence to the high office, then we are assured of their impeccable integrity.
Who are we to judge them?
We are lucky. Very lucky for now — as a liberated people — we can be jailed for criticising the high office.
We can now safely watch while our fathers and mothers go home without salaries while the politically connected take away thousands.
Why should we complain? Those are the gains of our liberation. We now have the freedom to be poor in the midst of plenty.
We should all have the freedom to understand that there are no more national resources. Resources are for the few who liberated us to do as they please.
We should not be sinful, for instance, to query the misappropriation of revenue such as money from diamond sales or tollgate fees.
We should agree that freedom is in the air and be grateful to those who brought it upon us without our help.
We should not be thankless children who question the ways that make us enjoy the freedom of being poor.
We must be happy that at least those who liberated us can find ways of violating Section 302 of the Constitution to rob the national purse. They keep what they collect, forget about the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
We should understand freedom means that money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be abused by the fat cats for their benefit since the public sector is there to serve their interests.
We should be grateful that those who plunder resources can now be rotated from one public office or public institution to another to ensure equitable plundering.
Only the poor and political enemies have the freedom to be jailed for petty crimes.
We are lucky that those who gave us freedom love the poor so much that they want to create many of them.
By the end of the year — judging by the way our freedom is taking us — we will have more poor people than the grains of sand on the banks of Save River.
Aren’t we lucky that we are free?
We now have the freedom to exercise our greed to the detriment of our economy.
Isn’t it a good feeling that those with impunity can indulge in all forms of corruption without the fear of being punished?
Freedom is in the air, let’s enjoy it. Let’s support our liberators so that they live well off our national resources.
They deserve it.
After all they single-handedly liberated this country as it were and successfully turned it from a Republic into a Private Limited entity.
COMMENTS
A wonderful poetic narrative! We have the freedom to be arrested for saying somebody’s correct age!!!!!!!!
What we need to clear about is that we cannot shame these people into resigning from office for all their misdeeds over 34 years, so as good as this article is the time has come for action. The only language these bullies understand is a show of force from the population at large. Their never freed or liberated us as claimed – this was a negotiated settlement called the Lancaster House agreement!! They disgust me.
well written and well put across. least we forget. Pillaging without mercy. thats the zAnu slogan.
It ought to be funny if it was not so sadly true. Cry the beloved country!
YES FREE INDEED!
well written.all things must eventually come to an end brothers
WOW – well put. Pity the fat cats wont get to read it.
Very well put, you can bet this money will not be spent on the roads but to pay the civil service…
I knew they were going to hike the toll fees because we initially debated on increasing the number of toll gates than the price but it was treated as an unnecessary cost in the short term coz the pocket is no longer satisfying the ‘boss’ So pity that a number of ‘them’ are going to be exempted for toll fees. WE ARE FREE AT LAST!!