He’s done such a fine job, ya know.
ZIMBABWE has the highest inflation and lowest life expectancy in the world, not to mention the highest percentage of orphans. So desperate is the shortage of food that President Robert Mugabe’s own guards have been spotted shooting squirrels in Harare’s Botanical Gardens.
However, Mugabe, 82, may be rewarded by being made president for life at his party’s annual conference this week.
Among the main proposals to be discussed is postponing presidential elections from 2008 till 2010. But Didymus Mutasa the powerful national security minister and secretary for administration in the ruling Zanu-PF party, said last week that Mugabe had done “so many wonderful things” for Zimbabwe that it was likely that delegates to the conference would appoint him for life.
“There is a realistic chance that someone among the delegates or one of the provinces could come up with a proposal that he remains the party’s presidential candidate until Amen,” said Mutasa.
“He has done so many wonderful things for this country and its majority population and he is not showing any signs of tiredness. So if it is raised, as I am sure it will be, why not?”
Didymus Mutasa, sycophant.
Here’s the latest on one of the most “wonderful things” Mugabe has done to for Zimbabwe.
Six years ago, Mugabe initiated seizure of productive lands from white farmers for redistribution to important political supporters and cronies. For Zimbabwe’s economy, it’s been straight down hill from there. Last year, the government had to pump Z$7 billion (US$28 million) into boosting agricultural productivity, but that was an almost complete waste.
The money in the Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Fund, Aspef, was designated for the purchase of fuel, seed, fertiliser, ploughs and tractors and to rehabilitate irrigation equipment vandalised and stolen during the farm seizures. But Mugabe said in an angry speech in early December that 400 tractors released by the government under Aspef had either been stripped of their parts for resale or had simply disappeared.
The return on the Aspef investment has been minimal. Most of the peasant farmers lucky enough to have been allowed to remain on the land they invaded have sold their fertiliser and maize seed on the thriving black market to raise money for immediate needs. Consequently, as the independent weekly Financial Gazette's trenchant columnist Mavis Makuni pointed out, "They are working the huge tracts of land allocated to them under the land reform programme using their bare hands."
Farmers are granted the right to buy gasoline at below-market prices. At the same time, however, it is illegal to sell maize, Zimbabwe’s staple crop, except through the government marketing board. Official crop prices are set so low that farmers reap greater profits selling their subsidised gas on the black market instead of growing food.
All hail Dictator Mugabe.
Previous related posts:
Posts
The middle frame of the second strip is a riot: The college girls are in awe as he says, “Yeah, when I was captain of the hockey team, we used to train in -40C weather until midnight.”