HomeOld_PostsMega looting and success in Africa: Part One

Mega looting and success in Africa: Part One

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AFTER going through an agonising four-and-a-half years of the so-called Inclusive Government with all its contradictions and constant bickering, it seemed as if Zimbabwe was heading for better times — more so after a successful election exercise which produced a decisive outcome!
Most of us came to believe that there must be some inner strength hidden somewhere in the Zimbabwean psyche or is it consciousness? Something that made it possible for the country to carry out an outreach programme of country-wide consultations whose outcome was a brand new constitution.
The country had also managed to conduct a referendum on the new constitution in the middle of an economic blizzard and subsequently proceeded to conduct one of the most peaceful national elections ever held in the country in 2013.
All this was achieved notwithstanding economic sanctions which the West imposed against the country so as to smash to smithereens what has turned out to be a very successful land revolution in Africa, if not in the whole world!
And a bloodless one at that!
Like them or hate them, most Zimbabweans come across as a resilient and resourceful people whom the West with all its economic and media might has failed to put down!
If there was a time when Zimbabweans could have easily risen up against each other and dutifully slaughtered each other much to the glee of the Western world, it was in 2007 and 2008, when economic hardships almost broke the back of the country — but that something which undoubtedly must have come from experiences associated with the liberation struggle held things together.
With the kind of grit Zimbabweans displayed in 2007 and 2008 — right up to 2013 it seemed as if it would only be a matter of time before Zimbabwe picked itself up and proceeded to become a medium economic power, and a model not only to Southern Africa, but to Africa as a whole-that is with or without Western economic sanctions in place!
Why? One may ask!
Because right now it is the only African country which has successfully addressed the ownership issue in regard to land; and the only country to start addressing the ownership of the whole national economy vis-a-vis Western control of the same!
To fight the West and live long enough to tell the tale is a feat which many African countries are still to do — and Zimbabwe has done that much to the begrudging admiration of the rest of Africa!
This David and Goliath story as illustrated by the ongoing economic battle between Zimbabwe and the Western world largely explains why Robert Mugabe is given standing ovations where ever he goes on our beloved continent.
His personal story and that of Zimbabwe are two sides of the same coin.
It is an iconic story likely to be told to several African generations to come because it marks a different stage in the emancipation of Africa, a stage likely to be followed by the rest of Africa sooner rather than later!
Most Zimbabweans believe they are on a journey for full nationhood, for full self-fulfilment as a people and that they are following the right path!
But alas a more deadly enemy located not from without as the British and Americans are, but from within the gates are posing a more serious and more immediate danger to everyone.
This other enemy that is not necessarily visible to most of us is now blocking our path to full nationhood; that enemy lies comfortably hidden within ourselves!
And that enemy is boundless greed in its raw and primitive form.
The desire to acquire and accumulate instant wealth by African elites is so frighteningly huge that today it stands as one of the most deadly scourges impeding the economic growth of our continent so that it becomes a global power in its own right!
These African elites are found in business sectors, in politics, in professional fields of all kinds; they are a class which feels entitled to everything related to wealth of any kind and will stop at nothing to acquire that wealth at the expense of the majority whose lives remain poor and full of indescribable misery.
The mere fact that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was run by a management group looting tens of thousands of United States dollars per month when the majority of workers did not get their salaries for several months — the mere fact that the management at Premier Service Medical Aid Society was looting hundreds of thousands of United States dollars per month when the majority of its clients did not get the medical services they needed when they fell ill — the mere fact that the City Council of Harare is run by a management group which rewards itself with obscene salaries when most of its rate payers live in dark unlit houses — houses surrounded by uncollected garbage and wretched roads full of potholes which impede passage to and from contaminated water wells — because the city can no longer deliver clean water to its residents—the mere fact that Air Zimbabwe could not fly for several months because the management was busy appropriating millions through insurance scams — all this says one thing that is common to all these management mafia — that their conscience is dead and buried — that their love for mammon has become an incurable disease wreaking havoc left right and centre; it has become an epidemic of a sort and an obvious danger to anyone — more so when they are the ones entrusted in good faith to manage organisational matters on behalf of the nation!
All these people have betrayed that sacred trust and gone into a feeding frenzy at the expense of the whole nation.
It is first class betrayal to all those who died fighting for freedom from Western colonialism with all its tin-pot dictatorships and predatory economic practices.
Wittingly or unwittingly, these management groups are the internal enemies of the country complementing the predatory role of those external enemies from Britain, Europe and the USA.
It is obvious that a new frontier to root out corruption is opening up in Zimbabwe in a vivid way and that this is a challenge which is neither new nor original in its character but common to Africa as a whole.
The only question remaining is whether Zimbabwe will provide the kind of leadership that is required to deal with this internal scourge?
Zimbabwe has so far demonstrated that it can manage its external enemies from the Western world.
Can it also show leadership in dealing with its internal enemies dedicated to corruption on an industrial scale?

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