So Manheru is back: Who cares? – MuckRaker

He still needs an editor. What sort of columnist is it who is allowed to wander all over the place without any direction?

Racist rants

John Robertson is subject of racist abuse for daring to express his reservations about the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) which he quite rightly referred to as “acres and acres of inane editorial grey”.

Wouldn’t that be a better description of Manheru? But his target, while ostensibly Patrick Chinamasa, turned out to be the captains of Zimbabwe’s industry who showed insufficient zealotry. Robertson was dismissed as a little Rhodesian white man.

And he promised the WHO’s little white lady that he would turn to deal with her at some later date.

Again: So who wants to know?
Hard times for who?

There was certainly no suggestion of this lot falling on hard times. MPs had got the deputy Clerk of Parliament to write of their predicament.
And their children? They are at boarding school, we are told. Such hardship is indescribable!

Submitting Mutasa

We did, however, like Monday’s front page Herald picture of Didymus Mutasa kneeling before the throne while the young whippersnapper Phillip Chiyangwa was comfortably ensconced in a State House chair.
So this is what the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs is all about?

Prioritising own pay

Meanwhile parastatatal heads are making a killing. If their organisations had been run properly, they would now be able to pay their staff decent salaries. But it seems their own salaries take priority. And we are hearing little lectures from precisely the people who allowed the present situation to develop?

Can you imagine a well-run airline with competitive fares? Or a railway network with clean compartments and cheap fares? And what about a professional broadcasting system that the public respects and which they listen to for their news instead of the ignorant and at times farcical views foisted on the public?

We get a desert
Is there anything in this country that actually works? There was Zanu PF boasting of its achievements on ZTV ahead of the election. But it has given us a desert where it should be productive and self-sufficient.

We are taxed to listen to Tafataona Mahoso’s drivel. He holds the nation captive while he presides over a pernicious propaganda regime.
Now we discover the state’s apparatus costs us tens of thousands of dollars a month so its executives can live off the fat of the land.
Chinamasa was talking of the new economy ahead of his budget. It is proving bankrupt already.

Over-killing

With the news this week of police transfers, it may be worth recalling remarks by Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba who told us the following:

“The organisation has no policy of over-killing, a matter of pandering to the whims of the hard-hearted who would want to see a mountain falling and burying (senior police officer Oliver) Chibage.”
It is extraordinary that it needs to be explained to her that this is not a matter of hard hearts and falling mountains. It is about upholding the law. We need to make this clear every time a police officer boasts of how the ZRP is selected for duty abroad.

Tight-lipped Shamu

Undoubtedly the most interesting story this week was Webster Shamu remaining “tight-lipped” over the “damning report” on the state of affairs at ZBC written by George Charamba in November 2012.
The report, says the Herald, brought to Shamu’s attention the state of affairs at the national broadcaster and recommended a shake-up in the management.

The memo was found among Happison Muchechetere’s files at Pockets Hill and leaked to the Herald by ZBC staffers.

Interesting, isn’t it that this was leaked in time for Monday’s edition? But the public who read the paper weren’t allowed to share the contents of the letter. George was keeping that firmly under wraps.

Perhaps Shamu felt it was unethical to threaten to disclose confidential information obtained by dubious means? His question: “In all fairness, does this make sense to you?” seems to tell us all we need to know.