I read the article, headlined “Zim economy faces Mugabe election win threat” (August 2), with a lot of anticipation, only to meet the following statement: “Under the coalition government, imposed on [President Robert] Mugabe by the 15-nation Southern African Development Community in 2009 after disputed elections, MDC-appointed ministers abolished the national currency in favour of the use of currencies including the dollar, cut the inflation rate to 1.9 percent from the 500 billion percent estimated by the International Monetary Fund and oversaw four consecutive years of economic growth.”
The article is generally informative except that it peddles the lie that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) ministries introduced the multi-currency system in Zimbabwe. The system was introduced unofficially in 2008 in Zimbabwe, the year before the unity government took power in February 2009
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I remember vividly the whole issue because we discussed this subject of using foreign currency for domestic trading at the GIBS Board Leadership programme. Gwede Mantashe was in the same September 2008 classroom as well, and then-president Thabo Mbeki was re-called at the Kempton Park lekgotla that happened at the same time.
The Zanu-PF acting finance minister at the time was Patrick Chinamasa who got the necessary legislation passed on January 29, 2009, two weeks before the government of national unity came into being.
The MDC-T used to poke fun at the Zanu-PF government, mocking them that you have no problem using American currency and yet you call them imperialists when they call for democracy.
I am neither a member of the MDC-T nor Zanu-PF, let’s just write the truth.
Paul Rumema Chimhosva
Area Project Manager
Grootegeluk Medupi Expansion Project
South Africa is three nations, not two
The article by Ellis Mnyandu on July 29, headlined “Africa’s destiny in hands of its people, not governments”, refers.
US President Barack Obama did, indeed, warn Africa at UCT that the choices made by the ordinary citizen should be in the interests of Africa: “History tells us that true progress is only possible where governments exist to serve their people, and not the other way around.”
Former president Thabo Mbeki was inclined to refer to two nations in South Africa, one white and rich, and one black and poor. I think Mbeki was doing South Africa a disservice in adapting Disraeli’s hypothesis to current local conditions. As I see it there are three South Africas.
The first is the white section, poor and rich, which aspires to a form of life which exists in Europe and America where the rule of law is accepted as the norm and governments change peacefully, frequently.
The second is that of the political elite who have enacted legislation and manipulated the tender processes in order to enrich themselves and, while decrying the benefits of colonialism, have taken every beneficial aspect of colonial life in order to make their lives opulent and excessive.
The members of this group are well known, whether they are in “commerce”, the trade union movement or one of the three spheres of government.
Third, there is the mass of the people who are duped, if not actually intimidated, by the second group to vote for a better life for all. This third segment is given promises of free education, electricity, water borne sanitation and, above all, jobs.
Lacking the natural common sense and the education to discern the fallacy, this third group is stimulated to jealously regarding the position of the first group and aspire to their standard of life, without both the concomitant work and rule of law.
In any case, the rule of law is to be ditched in order to deprive the members of the first group of their way and amenities of life while preserving those of the second group.
Until the third group has the common sense to discern the mendacity and self-interests of the proposals by the second group, the governments of Africa will not be subject to the demands to serve the best interests of the majority of Africans.
Until then, the Idi Amins, the Bashirs, the Mugabes and all the other “strong men” of Africa will prevail over the interests of the general run of the Africans who require the advantages which a free market economy brings.
L E A Callaghan
Kenilworth
Time to check finances of Cape’s politicians
During several generations people who succeeded in fleeing the Soviet Union could look for safe asylum in the US. Today, an American who denounces the dictatorial powers that his country’s politicians have unconstitutionally acquired can only find asylum in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the ex dictatorial Soviet Union. Sic transit… ex land of the free… of the American dream.
It took less than a quarter century for America’s politicians to turn their country into a belligerent power that even spies on their own citizens and will not hesitate to imprison or kill them without process. Had the Soviet Union been a beneficial controlling agent?
On a smaller scale we see a similar story unfold in Cape Town. Wee bureaucrats decide what schools to close, what shopping malls to build on a last bit of unspoilt countryside, what houses to construct on the remaining agricultural land and where and how part of the population should empty their bowels in what receptacle.
Their lust for power is unlimited; they pretend to know how to run a public transport scheme and engineer a road from Hout Bay to Noordhoek.
They decide to choose a mayor who has been broke most of her life, to manage the billions the city rakes in with unjust rates and taxes, and who presents the keys of the city to the biggest robber who ever presided over America.
To end this lament, these ambitious plodders who would not be able to buy a loaf of bread without being paid by Other People’s Money are totally incapable to know what to do with Cape Town’s biggest million-rand-consuming white elephant, the soccer stadium, that they so much wanted.
Now, to escape the blame, they want to check the finances of the builders.
Let them show their own.
Nicholas Dekker,
De Kelders, Gansbaai