Anyone who saw Zimbabwe’s acting Minister of Finance Patrick “whose fooling who” Chinamasa deliver his budget, to roars of derision and laughter from the MDC members of Parliament on SABC 3 News last night, would immediately have begun phoning around to see if this genius does children’s parties. None of your one-liners or knock knock jokes for this fellow — this was comedy at its finest.
Not since Adolf Hitler in the final week before he committed suicide has the planet been treated to elected officials deploying non-existent assets and plotting grandiose targets, without the means with which to achieve them, with such conviction. Indeed, when Chinamasa said that they were aiming at reducing the inflation rate of 231 000 000% per annum — when they lost count in July 2008 — to double-digit inflation, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Of course the Zimbabwe dollar has become top entertainment all on its own. Every week we await the latest of Gideon Gono’s escapades with the Z$100-trillion dollar note representing his finest work yet. Those who think that the note is worthless be advised that I have it on good authority that it is thoroughly absorbent but not to be used in instances where parties are suffering from piles.
Unfortunately the Zimbabwean “government” has reached the conclusion that, like themselves, it has become useless. Accordingly Chinamasa has confirmed that Zimbabweans may now conduct business in other currencies. Seems a shame really, what with everyone waiting for the Z$500-quadrillion note and me having a dodgy stomach an’ all. Suppose I’ll just have to persevere with the old twin-ply.
The problem for civil servants is that they will still be getting paid with the local currency. In essence they won’t be able to afford the bus fare to work and back, never mind feed themselves.
Of course what was left out was the major item, which uses up around 55% of the country’s annual budget. As soon as the figures for Bob and Grace Mugabe’s yearly spending comes through I’ll update this. It really is humour at its finest and, in Gono and Chinamasa, Zimbabwe has two of the finest comedians on the continent.
The only problem with Beelzebub’s finest disciple Bob’s clowns is that, while they are doing stand-up posing as Finance Minister and Governor of the Reserve Bank, the World Food Programme has announced that nearly seven million Zimbabweans will need food aid in February and March.
Think about that number and let it sink in — well over half of the population of our northern neighbours is dependent on the goodwill of countries that their government point blank refuse to listen to. A government whose policies have brought them to this point and who cannot be voted out of office. This in the SADC region run by a group of elitists who consider the lives of a few thugs and their continued luxury more important than our millions of brothers and sisters suffering this outrage.
It gets worse; the Guardian is reporting that UN food aid may well have to be cut in half as demand for aid increases and aid support reduces. As things stand they will not be able to provide enough rations per day to keep an adult alive.
Obviously the SADC will make up the shortfall seeing as though they are the ones who are facilitating the continuation of Robert “Satan lives” Mugabe and ensuring that an external rescue package is removed from the table.
We, as citizens of the SADC, must insist that they provide the additional aid to Zimbabweans and that this comes out of party, NOT government, funds. If they want to use the money from this country they must call a referendum on the following question: “Can the government use the finance of this country to aid Robert Mugabe?”. That is the reality, so let’s find out how many of us support it.
We have just seen our bus services receiving R300-million short in subsidies while Mugabe received R300-million posing as “agricultural aid”. Let South Africans vote on whether they want this to continue. Without that referendum it is the party, not the people of South Africa, who want to support this mass-murdering butcher.
When the party pays for it they can give aid to who ever they want.
Even a genocidal dictator.
Author
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