Government that brags about paying its pensioners $45 per month needs to go! 

I know that when one is a good for nothing loser – whose life is characterized by roguish and disgraceful behavior – finding anything positive to boast about becomes ever more impossible, and, is forced to even brag over the most ludicrous things.

Source: Government that brags about paying its pensioners $45 per month needs to go! – The Zimbabwean

Some may tell everyone how they can shout, on top of their voices, at those who offend them, for hours without stopping.

Whilst, still others may find immense pride over how much they can drink in one sitting, and spend the day dazed in a half-awake half-dead state.

Yet, the government of Zimbabwe appears one step ahead of all these – considering how their senior officials have, of late, been outdoing each other in boasting over the so-called Second Republic’s ‘outstanding achievements’.

Just a few days ago I bumped into information ministry permanent secretary Nick Ndavanin’i Mangwana’s tweet, in which he could not help himself with delight (pictures and all) over the government’s ‘Emergency Road Rehabilitation Program’ (MRRP2) – whereby, the Shangani/Fort Rixon dust road had been graded.

Honestly, a bragging over a dust road! Even Rhodesia’s strip roads were a much better offering.

Then, a day later, the minister of labour and social welfare, Paul Mavima, was equally over the moon – even demanding the population thank the country’s authorities – due to the measly USD45 per month they were giving pensioners!

Can this regime seriously be expected to stoop any lower?

What is there to celebrate when our elderly mothers and fathers are expected to survive on an amount that is only enough to buy a loaf of bread a day for a month?

Are we to assume that, in our beloved Zimbabwe, our elderly no longer have any other expenses expected of them – such as buying other basic commodities and clothing, as well as paying for their accommodation, medications, electricity, and so many other needs?

Where, then, does our government find the audacity to herald, on top of the proverbial mountain, their ‘brilliance’ in insulting our parents in this manner – going as far as expecting the entire nation to celebrate this nonsense?

Let us not forget that, our parents (during their working days) were forced, without their consent, into contributing significant portions of their hard-earned salaries towards NSSA (National Social Security Authority) – under the pretext that, the payouts during their retirement years would provide them with a relatively comfortable livelihood.

This was done despite most of them already separately contributing large chunks of their salaries towards their employer’s pension schemes.

Nonetheless, after retirement, most are still wallowing in abject poverty – as a direct result of the Zimbabwe government’s psychopathic economic policies, as well as rampant corruption, that destroyed an otherwise vibrant and promising country – thereby, swiftly eroding our parents’ savings, investments, insurance policies, and pensions.

As the situation prevails today, most elderly persons – who sweated and toiled for their families and the country, whilst at the same time, putting in place measures that they believed would secure their retirement – now live as if they never worked a single day in their entire lives.

Therefore, may I ask Mavima, and his comrades in the Zimbabwe administration, why any sane person should be jubilating watching our parents suffering and struggling to survive?

As a matter of fact, we are thoroughly infuriated with this regime – with its shameless kleptomaniac, cruel, and evil leaders, who would not mind robbing a poor elderly widow (as my own mother) of all her life’s savings and investments, leaving her near destitute, in spite of working for the fallen iron and steel giant (ZISCOSTEEL) since 1964 till 2010…a company that was similarly looted into oblivion by the ruling elite.

Do those in power in Zimbabwe know how it feels watching your own mother shedding tears of pain, after realizing that all her life’s work had all been wiped away, literally overnight, and she had absolutely nothing left?

So, please before insulting us, by asking us to be grateful and celebrate whatever peanuts you have decided to give our parents – first of all, know that we regard you as nothing more than sadistic evilbeings, who destroyed our parents’ lives, and what we think of you will be better off if it remained unprinted.

© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice activist, writer, author, and political commentator. Please feel free to contact him on WhatsApp/Call: +263715667700 / +263782283975, or Calls Only: +263788897936 / +263733399640, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com