Attempt to twist reality unmasks propagandists 

Source: Attempt to twist reality unmasks propagandists – The Zimbabwe Independent April 26, 2019

“. . . money is not a problem for Zanu PF. If schools, villagers and companies do not cough up the money that the party needs for conferences, through the party’s thoroughly effective and persuasive manner of fund raising, then the ruling party can always take money from the national petty cash box. Why not?”

In an article on the MDC’s upcoming congress, The Herald informed the nation that the opposition party was “splashing” $3 million on the congress.

MUCKRAKER
Twitter: @MuckrakerZim

Fair enough, no big deal there. However, it is what we were told next that set alarm bells ringing for some of us religious followers of patriotic journalism.

The MDC, the paper dutifully told us, is spending all this money “at a time when the majority of Zimbabweans are struggling to make ends meet”.

This came as a surprise to some of us who have fed on numerous headlines telling us how the economy is recovering under President Emmerson Mnangagwa and how investors are rushing through the border gates to get into the country.

Just two days ago we were told the Chinese are investing another US$5 billion on top of other multi-billions.

Does the paper mean to say people are struggling under Mnangagwa? Is this not an offence for which several unpatriotic dissenters across the country have been arrested for saying?

We all seem to recall a Gokwe teacher arrested for complaining about failing to make ends meet. Now what is this that we see from our trusted Pravda, guardian of national interest, telling us that people are struggling?

We are unsure as to whether The Herald is telling us that the MDC must use its money to feed the hungry. Unless, of course, The Herald is telling us that the MDC is now the government.

As Muckraker has pointed out before, the only truth you see on The Herald’s front page is the date (although one is tempted to cross-check that as well, just in case). However, this week, the entire nation congratulates the gallant comrades at the national paper for shocking even themselves with a rare bout of random truth. Get well soon.

Meagre

As for the congress budget, Zanu PF must be laughing at the MDC’s measly budget of RTGS$3 million. How do you feed 6 000 people on such small change? Who do they think they are? Jesus feeding the multitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish?

We know that bread is a luxury these days, but this is pretty cheap of the MDC to starve their people in this way. At Zanu PF, no expenses are spared when it comes to feeding delegates. In fact, at one time, instead of two fish and five loaves of bread, whole elephants were killed to feed the party.

Besides, money is not a problem for Zanu PF. If schools, villagers and companies do not cough up the money that the party needs for conferences, through the party’s thoroughly effective and persuasive manner of fund raising, then the ruling party can always take money from the national petty cash box. Why not?

How else are you a ruling party if you cannot enjoy the benefits of using tax money? We would not want delegates to go hungry simply because of foreign concepts like fiscal discipline and national budgets.

We can be sure that Zanu PF will surpass this MDC congress budget. By the time we get to December, the budget for the Zanu PF conference will be around $20 million or more, thanks to the party’s ingenious management of the economy.

Theft honour

It has been reported that 215 drums of bitumen meant for the Harare-Beitbridge highway project have gone missing in Chivhu.

According to the Masvingo Mirror, “the drums were offloaded outside Chivhu Ministry of Transport at Chivhu depot, but were not officially handed over to anyone for safekeeping”.

Who would want to steal a road? Muckraker wonders what they did with it. Was a small house gifted with a drum of tar for Valentine’s Day? Did a chef use it to tar their driveway? We know some of our leaders’ driveways are longer and better than our national highways.

While the news was met with gasps of shock across the country, it was met with a lot of envy within Zanu PF corridors. Everyone there has been asking themselves the question: “Why didn’t I think of this scam first?”

This is the sort of brazen theft that make one stand out in a Zanu PF crowd. You become a hero to your peers.

They give you a big chair and buy you drinks, just so you can tell them about how you pulled off such a feat.

It is the sort of stuff that helps you qualify for higher office in the party. Whoever pulled off this heist better make themselves known. They will be rewarded with a top post in the party and in government. These are the sort of skills required in leadership.

Bakeries galore

After much intellectual thought and debate on the bread crisis, the government in its infinite wisdom has come up with a solution: the best way to deal with the high price of bread is to make more bread. Simple.

“Government says it will facilitate the setting up of small-scale bakeries across the country, offering affordable bread prices as consumers have been hit hard by the recent price increases,” our patriotic press reported, quoting Mnangagwa’s Independence Day speech.

Soon, we will have bakeries at every corner, bakeries in our homes and even in the churches. Everyone must make bread, to shame those greedy capitalists who think they are the best thing to happen to the world since sliced bread.

Similarly, by that same genius logic, we will also open more service stations in order to deal with high fuel prices. As beer prices go up, we will also simply open more bars. This is basic economics, led by the New Dispensation.

Insanity

Someone ought to tell Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga and Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo that as former military commanders they are now in civil service and no longer in the barracks.

It seems, although, physically they are in civil service, in mind and spirit they might as well still be dressed in camouflage. In their remarks over the increase in prices of basic commodities, they use language one would expect to be barked at corporals, especially as Moyo speaks of “lack of discipline”.

Chiwenga took it further at a business conference held at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair this week. The former commander of the military bellowed that they would deal decisively with what he called “financial terrorism”.
Of course, they were supporting Mnangagwa and Finance minister Mthuli Ncube’s war on business over escalating price hikes or rampant inflation.

Both Chiwenga and Moyo seem to forget is that the price increases are as a result of tinkering by government, which includes enforcing fictitious exchange rates instead of letting market forces dictate the direction of the economy.
Chiwenga and Moyo should realise that guns, tanks, commands and threats do not work on the economy. These threats are just exposing Mnangagwa and his regime’s officials as clueless and incompetent.

Former president Robert Mugabe would froth at the mouth and bellow threats to business, with disastrous consequences, which included empty shelves. Chiwenga and Moyo want to repeat exactly what Mugabe did and yet expect different results. There is a word for it. It is called insanity.

Chamisa’s religious impulses perplexing

For years, we have blamed corruption and incompetence for Zimbabwe’s crisis. According to Nelson Chamisa, we have all been wrong all along. The problem, apparently, is the Zimbabwe bird.

Replying on Twitter to a supporter who said “Zimbabweans’ birds must now fly (sic)”, Chamisa dropped a pearl of prophetic wisdom: “That Zimbabwean (sic) bird symbol is part of the problem. We must deal with institutional idolatry.”

Chamisa is obviously entitled to his religious beliefs. But he should make up his mind whether he wants to be President of Zimbabwe, a Constitutional republic, or whether he wants to be a pointy-shoe and shiny-suit wearing leader of the Heaven Embassy Fire Power Anointing Ministries International Church.

Muckraker might be ancient, but he has no recollection of a time when people bowed before that stone bird as if it was some kind of god. We reserve such blind worship only for our politicians.