- Dear Family and Friends,
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- It took two hours this week for the Governor of the Reserve
Bank to present a monetary policy for Zimbabwe to encompass the next few
months. After speaking for an hour Dr Gideon Gono hadn't got to the financial
plan yet. He had spent the first sixty minutes exposing the corruption,
scams, schemes, smuggling, wheeler dealering and the downright looting
of the country by the elite. The audience were in their best bib and tucker,
seated on padded chairs and with polished desk space in front of them.
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- There were business men and women, government officials
and a number of government ministers. There were, however, a couple of
notable absences, one of which was the Minister of Finance and another
Vice President Mujuru. In front of each person was a bottle of safe, clean,
pure mineral water and the best brand of orange juice in the country -
the one that most people can't afford anymore.
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- What the Reserve Bank Governor described for that first
hour was a disgraceful catalogue that any country should and would be deeply
ashamed to admit and yet there was almost no response from the audience.
Dr Gono said that the "consequences of maintaining the status quo"
were "too ghastly to contemplate". He spoke of massive maize
scams, of fuel racketeering and fertilizer fiddles. He continually accused
"those amongst us" as being the people engaged in these activities.
He said that the smuggling of gold, diamond and other minerals had reached
mammoth proportions and was akin to "mafia style dealings".
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- Dr Gono was scathing in the extreme about the new
A2 farmers many of who are high ranking government officials. He said they
were given the best of the seized commercial farms and yet still failed
to produce. He said the farmers were consumed with incessant "baby
crying" as they begged for cheap fuel, seed, fertilizer and tractors.
And when these A2 farmers, many of whom have other businesses and drive
luxury 4x4 vehicles, have been given everything at massively subsidised
prices, Dr Gono said they find a queue of scapegoats to blame for 6 unbroken
years of dismal production. This far into the speech Dr Gono had said nothing
that all Zimbabweans do not know already.
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- An hour and a half into his two hour speech and after
we'd had the religious stories and the world history lesson, Dr Gono made
the first monetary announcement. "There will be no devaluation"
he said, and at that point there was a half hearted smattering of applause
from the audience. People sat back in their chairs, faces took on a glazed
look and from that moment it seemed as if everyone knew that nothing was
going to change - how could it without political backing.
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- Everyone also seemed to know that in just two days time
another round of scams and schemes, frauds and fiddles would probably begin
as almost all the remaining commercial farmers fall victim to the latest
government eviction notices which take effect on Saturday 3rd February.
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- On the same day as the presentation of the monetary policy,
news came of 19 confirmed cases of cholera from high density suburbs outside
Harare. Film footage on television showed women scooping basins of murky
water out of puddles - desperate after days of dry taps. This is physically
just two dozen kilometres out of Harare but it may as well be a world away
from the suited businessmen, the bottled mineral water and the orange juice.
You have to wonder how it would go down if the next monetary policy took
place there - among the mud and the flies, the sewage and the garbage.
These are the people suffering the results of the scams and schemes, the
looting and smuggling and you can only wonder how much more they can take.
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- Until next week,
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- love cathy
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- Copyright cathy buckle 3 February 2007 http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
from: orders@africabookcentre.com
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- To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write
to: cbuckle@mango.zw
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