INSTEAD of poking its nose in the country’s democratic and electoral processes, the United States should take full advantage of the engagement and re-engagement drive extended by the Second Republic to bring investors to Zimbabwe, whose economy is growing in leaps and bounds.
Reacting to shocking instructions from the US Harare Embassy on how the country should conduct its elections, specifically the forthcoming by-elections scheduled for March 26, Zanu PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa said the US, which maintains illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe, should cast off its frock of neo-colonial racism and global hegemony.
“Please Mr US Ambassador bring vaccines to fight Covid-19 and save lives. Encourage investors to plough in foreign direct investment so we upgrade our economy. You refer to certain democratic norms, we can take the affinity further into history.
“At different epochs, we both happen to share a common anti-colonial struggle against the same imperial power. We could start from that premise and take full advantage of our engagement and re-engagement as the Second Republic,” said Mutsvangwa.
Both Zimbabwe and the US were once colonies of the British Empire, which never forgave Zimbabwe for redressing colonial land inequities.
Referring to slain black American, Mr George Floyd, who was killed in cold blood in 2020 by racist white policemen, all the while pleading that “I can’t breathe”, Mutsvangwa said Zimbabwe was seeking “a breeze of saving and serving fresh air from Uncle Sam”.
“Incantations of abstract and abstruse platitudes will just not wash with Zimbabwe voters this time around,” he said.
This, he said, is because the Second Republic has implemented both political and economic reforms that have found resonance with the masses.
“It’s the year 2022 and the Second Republic of Zimbabwe of President Mnangagwa is firmly focussed on the current calendar. Flip over and there is the USA Embassy and its Twitter page in the aberration of the Mugabe era.
“A full generation later, its wall clock has never moved, replete with a plastered ZDERA (Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act) Congressional Statute.
“Like an old gramophone, we hear strictures and lectures about how our state should conduct its democratic processes. All this supposedly aimed at helping a favoured opposition party of a much-coveted Nelson Chamisa. Zimbabweans are not bleary-eyed Martians. Rather, they are earthlings who care about the day-to-day material conditions of their lives,” said Cde Mutsvangwa.
Areas that make Zimbabweans root for the Zanu PF led Government, Cde Mutsvangwa added, include Pfumvudza and the Presidential input scheme which has addressed challenges of perennial hunger while also filling up national granaries.
“Rural access roads are being repaired so that maize, the gold leaf tobacco, soya beans, and other crops can be delivered to markets while fertilisers, seed, and farm chemicals can be transported to farmers.
“Urban dwellers see President Mnangagwa invoking Executive Powers to bypass eunuch MDC politicians. They get elected to address the needs and plight of voters in urban constituencies. Two decades of crass corruption and appalling ineptitude find them blaming the Central Government. If you accept you’re neutered, why deceive the voter that you are being elected to fix concerns. Why not own up and stay away from high office”.
With the advent of the Second Republic, Cde Mutsvangwa said, urban roads are being tarred away from dusty tracks filled with potholes and rainy season flooded streams while stinking abandoned garbage is being carted away.
“Multi-billion-dollar dams, tunnels, and systemic reticulation will soon replace disease-prone shallow wells and boreholes as sources of the life-giving liquid for urban dwellers. Credit is the lifeline of prosperity and modern living. Title deeds for the existing stock of urban housing are the big bang New Year gift to urban dwellers. These spanking new title deeds will be tendered for mortgages and other types of financial instruments,” he said.
As this year begins, investors are in a bullish mode, riding on gains made last year and several mining giants are also trooping into the country, something the US should take note of and encourage its investors to do.
