Zimbabwe overburdened by wrong priorities – Tanonoka Joseph Whande

via Zimbabwe overburdened by wrong priorities by Tanonoka Joseph Whande | SW Radio Africa on Monday, February 10, 2014 

In normal situations around the world and, of course, outside Africa, all the people implicated in the salaries fiasco would have long been ejected from their jobs and charged.

Jonathan Moyo said that it was not illegal that these people awarded themselves hefty salaries and bonuses but he forgot whose money it was.

The taxpayers do not think so because it’s not Moyo’s money; it is the taxpayers’ money and every cent has to be accounted for.

But this kind of rot is expected from the likes of Moyo who take people as of no consequence and who believe money in government coffers belongs to them and not to the people.

We see it every day.

How much is it costing the people of Zimbabwe to fight a court battle to recover a house in Hong Kong, bought without the people’s knowledge and now using taxpayers’ money for these issues emanating from stolen monies?

This attitude that the few cents contributed by a lone citizen to the nation through taxation is their money is what Mugabe has always thought and is what his so-called ministers are doing.

We have a whole bunch of people in just about every parastatal who awarded themselves hefty paychecks, bonuses and other perks but we, the people, cannot touch them for taking money that is not theirs while running into the ground those entities meant to serve the people.

Mugabe’s sister passed away in hospital a few weeks ago after several years in a coma.

And, cruel as it might be, people were talking about how this could be afforded and who, really, was paying for it, considering that so-called ordinary people were lucky to be admitted into any hospital, let alone get the required care, medication and attention.

Mugabe uses public funds as if it is his personal money, as if it belongs to him.

We are well aware of the costs of his travels on personal business. We see how he has always spent more than he earns.

And, today, money from those few struggling taxpayers and weak companies is being diverted to take care of a family at the expense of the people.

The people of Zimbabwe are today being burdened with financial fights to recover a house, bought with stolen money and owned by the Mugabe family.

This stinks to high heavens. Africa has a notorious record of people enslaving themselves after colonialists had been driven out of power.

The cruelest thing Mugabe is doing is to use the people’s resources, the nation’s wealth and energy to abuse the very owners of that country and the people’s wealth against them.

There is that famed Biblical anecdote prohibiting the use of a mother goat’s milk to cook its very own kid. And our Robert is doing just that.

What a heartless old goat!

Mugabe has always been a selfish and self-centered leader who never accepted other people’s views. He is so bent on being an omnipotent that his rusty mind does not seem to register to him his own mortality.

I dislike the notion that Zimbabweans are beholden to Mugabe because he has destroyed our country more than he has improved it.

It is appalling that in the aftermath of revelations of abuse of office and public funds, he protects his underlings by having them keep their jobs or having them reinstated after being dismissed.

All the people who head parastatals are approved by Mugabe in his endless voyages of using public funds and office to pay personal debts and reward praise singers.

What does it take for these people to be responsible enough to be able to distinguish between personal and public property? They all behave as if we owe them something yet they owe the nation honest service, which they have always failed to deliver.

Mugabe never cared about the people or the nation. His mission was to please himself, comparing himself to Christ and wanting people to view him as a redeemer. Well, he is a murderer and the ghosts of those he murdered will give him no peace.

A selfish man, Mugabe has always put himself before the nation he was supposed to serve, which is a shame if we consider the number of people who perished in liberating Zimbabwe.

During the funeral of his sister a few weeks ago, Mugabe was quoted as saying that his sister Bridget’s situation made him introduce the Ministry on Psychomotor Activities which he gave to Josaya Hungwe.

Mugabe created a ministry because his own sister needed such services?

Psychomotor activity or learning is described as ‘the relationship between cognitive functions and physical movement’.

“Psychomotor learning is demonstrated by physical skills such as movement, coordination, manipulation, dexterity, grace, strength, speed; actions which demonstrate the fine motor skills such as use of precision instruments or tools, or actions which evidence gross motor skills such as the use of the body in dance, musical or athletic performance.”

In the end, all the definitions mean pretty much the same thing: movement that is related to the mind. In our history and, indeed, in the history of all nations, there has always been and are children and grown-ups in and out of schools who needed such attention but Mugabe did not care about them until July 2013 when, after stealing an election, he created such a ministry because such service was needed in his own household.

At his appointment to the ministry, which should have been a department in the Education Ministry, Hungwe was himself not even sure of what he was supposed to be doing.

Last September 30^th in Parliament, Higher Education Minister Olivia Muchena was challenged to explain the relevance of the Psychomotor Ministry and she fumbled around for a plausible justification without success.

“I would like to ask the indulgence of the house for me and my colleague to bring a joint statement after we are fully briefed,” Muchena said. “Normally, people learn in the mind and not able to do it. What is meant by psychomotor is that there should be engagement between the mind and how to do it.”

All Mugabe needed to do was to ask the teachers who are with these children more hours than us parents. They would not have recommended a separate ministry; they would have done it themselves because they are the ones who know the strengths and weaknesses of our children better than we do. They are in day to day contact with the affected children.

The money used to establish such a worthless ministry should have been channeled into the wages of our long suffering but patient teachers and into creating a strong department within the education ministry.

For some reason, Mugabe has always underestimated our teachers. He views them with some hatred. Teachers deserve more respect, especially from Mugabe, himself an undistinguished school teacher (do not listen to the nonsense about law and economics degrees).

To be fair to Hungwe, he is on record in parliament stating that he did not know what actually his ministry’s mandate was. Now he knows. Mugabe created a ministry for his own sister.

The heart of the matter is that Mugabe and his government do not view the over-indulgence of officials from parastatals as anything serious. This is a scandal in every respect and we can see a common method of indulgence among all parastatal heads and officials as if it was expected of them to do what they did.

Mugabe wastes people’s money while the people are suffering.

I believe he wants Zimbabweans to thank him for creating and introducing a ministry in our government…a ministry born out of his personal experiences.

But now Mugabe has “assigned functions to all his ministers except the Ministry of State for Liaising on Psychomotor Activities in Education and Vocational Training”.

I hope this is not because the person who inspired Mugabe to create this ministry has passed on.

Mugabe spends so freely because it is not his money. His priorities have always been wrong. After 34 years as leader, he still runs the nation a trial and error basis.

I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Monday, February 10^th, 2014.