Zimbabwe can be described as a
child that never matures, a child that has been starved of the fundamentals
needed for growth so much that the child is now suffering stunted growth. How
else can one describe the stagnation of the past 38 years? Most painful perhaps
is the fact that the starvation is happening in a house of plenty. The country
has bountiful minerals and rich soils that any other country would use to make
its citizens rich. But that has not happened in Zimbabwe, the country remains
what it has been 40 and more years ago, with the rural areas far much worse.
The major difference between the lives of citizens living in an average rural
area today and those who lived there in 1940 is probably access to mobile
network connectivity. The transport systems, housing and general social
organisation remain very much the same. The country’s rulers since 1980 must
take blame for this sad state of affairs. The country has produced so much
gold, chrome, emeralds, nickel, diamonds and other precious stones since
independence in 1980 that the lives of citizens should be fabulous now. We must
not still be hewers of wood and drawers of water any more. The Marange diamonds
have produced tens of millions of carats of diamonds since 2007; enough wealth
to build a whole new city in that poor land but nothing even remotely close to
that has happened. The diamonds have been looted by top ruling party
politicians and their cronies in the security sector and some foreigners with
close links to the ruling party. People must remember that in South Africa, the
city of Kimberly was built upon a diamond field that most probably was not even
as rich as Marange. Botswana has transformed itself upon diamond wealth that
again may not be as vast as that in Marange. How then is it possible that we remain
a country of beggars and homeless children when God has blessed us with so much
wealth? It is a big indictment of the corrupt liberation generation with a
stockholder mentality. That predatory generation continues to hold the country
to ransom while pillaging and plundering national wealth.
child that never matures, a child that has been starved of the fundamentals
needed for growth so much that the child is now suffering stunted growth. How
else can one describe the stagnation of the past 38 years? Most painful perhaps
is the fact that the starvation is happening in a house of plenty. The country
has bountiful minerals and rich soils that any other country would use to make
its citizens rich. But that has not happened in Zimbabwe, the country remains
what it has been 40 and more years ago, with the rural areas far much worse.
The major difference between the lives of citizens living in an average rural
area today and those who lived there in 1940 is probably access to mobile
network connectivity. The transport systems, housing and general social
organisation remain very much the same. The country’s rulers since 1980 must
take blame for this sad state of affairs. The country has produced so much
gold, chrome, emeralds, nickel, diamonds and other precious stones since
independence in 1980 that the lives of citizens should be fabulous now. We must
not still be hewers of wood and drawers of water any more. The Marange diamonds
have produced tens of millions of carats of diamonds since 2007; enough wealth
to build a whole new city in that poor land but nothing even remotely close to
that has happened. The diamonds have been looted by top ruling party
politicians and their cronies in the security sector and some foreigners with
close links to the ruling party. People must remember that in South Africa, the
city of Kimberly was built upon a diamond field that most probably was not even
as rich as Marange. Botswana has transformed itself upon diamond wealth that
again may not be as vast as that in Marange. How then is it possible that we remain
a country of beggars and homeless children when God has blessed us with so much
wealth? It is a big indictment of the corrupt liberation generation with a
stockholder mentality. That predatory generation continues to hold the country
to ransom while pillaging and plundering national wealth.
