Mugabe scold Mushohwe over Herald stories - proof stuck in his tyrannical ways. Patrick Guramatunhu

President Mugabe chastised Minister of Information, Chris Mushowe, for allowing the Zanu PF controlled but public owned newspaper, The Herald, to print articles critical of Minister Saviour Kasukuwere. The out bust has once again shown how little, even with the benefit of hindsight, President Mugabe understand what constitute a good and competent government

 “I don’t even know, there being articles Kasukuwere, Kasukuwere aah nahi vaMushohwe chii ichocho (Mushohwe what is that)?” President Mugabe asked.

“This being a member of Cabinet. If there are wrongs he has done, we have a dignified way of looking at ills and wrongdoings of all of us. We are a dignified party and if we are going to punish someone we will punish him even to the extent of dismissing him.

“Zvekungo zhambatata –zhambatata (Shouting nonsense) let’s not do it and if The Herald is to act like the opposition, richiri pape here (it is still a news paper)?”

The ongoing Zanu PF factional wars have resulted the dirty of one faction member being reported in public media. President Mugabe is publicly rebuking Minister Mushohwe not because The Herald stories are factually incorrect or is he objecting to the possible miscarriage of justice of trial by public media.

Indeed, in 2014 it was he, though his wife Grace, who subjected the then VP Joice Mujuru to one of the most brutal media kangaroo courts trials. His toroid attack is typical “do as I say and not as I do” that is both confusing and downright criminal!

Two things stand out like blazing bush fires in black night.

1)    Even now, with the country up to her eyes in the political and economic mess of his making, Mugabe still does not understand the critical important of a free and independent media in a health and functional free and prosperous nation.

The Herald, just like all the other public print media and the country’s only electronic media, ZBC, is there to perform the very important function of informing the public. The public media controls Zanu PF inherited at independence were created by the white racist regime to keep the black majority ignorant. Instead of scrapping the controls Zanu PF has added even more draconian controls of its own.

Zimbabweans are some of the brainwashed people on earth, thanks to the Zanu PF controlled media like The Herald. What is the point of holding national elections, for example, when the only candidate the people know and hear from is the Zanu PF candidate only.

2)    Corruption has grown and spread to the colossus it is today because Mugabe has failed to deal with such problems in his usual “dignified way’ – doing nothing, at best, or else sweep them under the carpet.

Reports of corruption in high office have dogged this Zanu PF government for decades and the regime has vehemently denied that corruption was a problem. It has blame drought, sanction imposed by the West, everything else but not corruption for the nation’s economic decline.

Over a year ago now, it was President Mugabe himself who admitted that $15 billions of diamond revenue were “swindled”. To date not even one suspect has been arrested and not even one dollar recovered. There is documentary evidence now in the public domain showing that Mai Mujuru and her late husband alone tried to sell over $15 billions worth of diamonds. Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, complained of receiving only one sixth of expected diamond revenue, proof the looting is still going on.

Zimbabwe’s economy has shrunk 50% since 2000 alone with devastating economic consequences to the nation. 95% of our people are out of work and 70% are poor with 25% now living in abject poverty – the level of poverty that kills. But this is to be expected; what nation on earth can sustain, much less prosper, such a colossal level of corruption and waste as $15 billions plus. Zimbabwe with it now merger $10 billion GDP can certain not afford it.

To add insult to injury Zanu PF is using some of the ill got diamond wealth to bankroll the party’s vote rigging activities. Whilst even the country’s major Hospitals like Pararenyatwa and Mpilo are running out of basic drugs like pain killers; Zanu PF continues to spend as if money is as common place as autumn leaves.

For decades President Mugabe has done nothing to stamp out mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness and today these problems have grown out of all proportion and weigh down the nation like mill-stone necklace

President Mugabe is a corrupt and murderous tyrant set in his corrupt and murderous ways, even now with all the evidence of the tragic suffering he has brought on the nation; he still continue down this ruinous path, he will never change. It is incumbent on us to remove the tyrant and his henchmen from office a.s.a.p.

We must redouble our efforts to have all the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship implemented without delay. Until we implement the reforms and thus hold free, fair and credible elections, this nation will continue to suffer under the iron grip of this Zanu PF dictatorship.