Civil Society to Take On Mugabe On the Streets

CIVIC society group, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, says it will soon take to the streets to demand that President Robert Mugabe’s government puts an end to the current economic crisis.

The coalition’s spokesperson, Mfundo Mlilo, said they will not watch people continue to suffer while the government pretends that all is well.

Mlilo said the solution to the current crisis facing the nation rests with Zimbabweans themselves who should demand an end to their suffering.

He said the group had already begun mobilising Zimbabweans to take on Mugabe’s government on the streets.

“We are finalising our preparations of mobilising all like-minded organisations like the Combined Harare Residents Association, Bulawayo Progressive Association and several community-based organisations and stage campaigns like the Save Zimbabwe Campaign that we used to stage in yester-years,” Mlilo said.

“People are suffering. They are being forced out of their jobs. They do not have food on their tables and water is not coming out of their taps and these are the problems and issues which we are confident that they will motivate them to mobilise and demonstrate.”

The threat to embark on demonstrations comes two weeks after the main opposition MDC-T youth wing also threatened to take to the streets to force the government to fulfil its election promise of creating 2.2 million jobs.

Zimbabwe is going through a fresh debilitating economic crisis critics blame on mismanagement by Mugabe’s government. The crisis has seen a surge in the number of companies being forced to close shop.

An economist in Harare, Vincent Musewe, told NewZimbabwe.com that the economy is now in the doldrums.

“Our industries are not performing instead we are having thousands being offloaded every day. The few remaining companies are failing to pay workers in time.

“Our banks do not have cash because people are not saving. They are surviving from hand to mouth. These are the signs of a failing economy,” he said.

Mugabe last week said Zimbabwe’s economy was now on the rebound following the adoption of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset).

But in a clear illustration of the confusion in government Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa admitted this week that the economy was in deep trouble.

He blamed the adoption of the multi-currency regime in 2009 for Zimbabwe’s current woes.