ZANU PF election manifesto a ‘bundle of lies’

via ZANU PF election manifesto a ‘bundle of lies’ | SW Radio Africa by Tichaona Sibanda October 3, 2013

Senior MDC-T official Obert Gutu on Thursday described ZANU PF’s election manifesto as a ‘bundle of lies used crudely to cheat the people of Zimbabwe.’

The ruling party’s election manifesto promised to create over 2 million jobs in the next five years, allegedly as part of an economic growth initiative based on the economic empowerment and indigenization drive. But the party’s secretary for Youth Affairs, Absolom Sikhosana, disclosed Tuesday that government will not be able to create the jobs promised in its manifesto, once again using the targeted sanctions as the excuse.

‘We are going to create jobs . . . but if you followed our strategy in our manifesto, you have got to accept we will not be able to create as many jobs as we would have loved to due to the imperialists’ continuing with their sanctions regime,’ Sikhosana said.

Reacting to this, Gutu, a former deputy Minister of Justice in the inclusive government, said they expected this to happen as they knew that ZANU PF did not have the capacity to deliver on its electoral promises.

He said the manifesto on job creation had glaring pigeon holes if you examined the performance of the economy. He said of the 74 companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange only ‘ten are in good shape.’

‘Sixty-four other companies are in the intensive care unit. So how do you create employment under these circumstances? I think they were also hoping to rig the economy as they did with the elections…you cannot do that, you simply need to run it like a good business to make profit,’ explained Gutu.

The MDC-T spokesman for Harare province said the truth is that, ‘chickens are coming home to roost’ as the ZANU PF manifesto contains nothing but a pack of lies.

‘It’s unfortunate that Zimbabweans were sold a dummy by ZANU PF and are suffering as a result. ZANU PF certainly has no capacity to deliver on its promises,’ he said. In the last two decades ZANU PF’s track record had been ‘full of failures and broken promises.’

Gutu said the party’s admission that it could not implement the manifest spoke loud and clear about ‘deceit with the common man.’

‘Since they came into power, this economy has taken a knock and is in bad shape. They promised the Zimbabwean people a lot in their election campaigns. They promised to change or improve a lot of things in a very short time. As such, more admissions of failure to deliver will come soon,’ Gutu added.

The government has also failed to fulfill promises it pledged during the campaign period, like raising salaries for civil servants and supplying farmers with inputs.