Source: Mugabe’s cash demand exposes govt’s duplicity – The Zimbabwe Independent March 16, 2018
Former president Robert Mugabe’s recent weird demand to be paid his monthly pension of US$13 000 in cash, as well as his pension lump sum of nearly half a million, has exposed his egocentricity, which could be a major factor that took Zimbabwe to the current quagmire.
The revelation that while he was president of Zimbabwe, Mugabe received monthly cash payments of US$20 000, further exposes a different Mugabe from the one that the nation used to hold in esteem with utmost veneration. Little was known that the old man was opposite of what the public eye has been seeing all along. It is clear that he has been indicating right while turning left. In him, Zimbabwe had a whited sepulchre, a cash and land baron. Most banks are giving out less than $100 in bond notes to depositors per week. It is an insult to depositors for one individual to demand US$13 333 monthly payment in cash, an amount that can accommodate over 600 depositors per week. Unless he is now a cash baron, Mugabe must embrace the plastic money system that he used to encourage people to use. One wonders what he really needs that cash for in an economy that has embraced e-transactions and plastic money. The revelation that all along he has been getting his salary in hard cash explains why he never attempted to fix our cash crisis.This just shows how out of touch with reality Mugabe was. It is, however, not too late for him to get a feel of what others have been experiencing. He did not appreciate the common challenges that his erstwhile subjects were facing on a daily basis. He was alienated, explaining his refusal to quit politics, with the hope of leading a heavenly life in a sea of poverty.
Mugabe is suffering from adjustment disorder and his family could do well by assisting him to cope with the new reality. He is in denial and this has manifested in the way he is hobnobbing with some political protagonists to whom he is pledging his generous goodwill in a presidential race against the incumbent President.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been patient with the old man. He created a soft landing for Mugabe with a lucrative severance package which is second to none.
Unfortunately, that goodwill is not being reciprocated. Mugabe must know that Zanu PF is bigger than an individual.
Still on his duplicity, during his incumbency, Mugabe has been preaching the “one-man-one-farm” gospel. He even later changed that policy to “one-household-one-farm”. The nation learnt with shock last week that the former first family owns a stunning 21 farms. Twenty-one farms when the waiting list of farm seekers is ballooning by each passing day. Indeed, Mugabe’s moves could just be a ploy to divert Mnangagwa’s attention from real economic issues.
Tafara Shumba.
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