African News Agency
Zimbabwe’s poison-tongued cabinet minister, Jonathan Moyo, has sparked a patriotic Mexican Wave on Twitter by gloating over the fall of the rand on Twitter.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was reported recently as having banned his cabinet from using social media, apparently because of former information minister Moyo’s Twitter attacks on his internal rivals.
But Moyo has continued to tweet freely and on Thursday tweeted that: “After SA lost position as Africa’s largest economy to Nigeria, Rand is now falling like any other African currency!”
That was too much for many of even his own Zimbabweans and certainly for many more South Africans, including Department of International Relations and Co-operation spokesperson Clayson Monyela, who tweeted that diplomacy prevented him from responding directly but appealed to his compatriots to come to his aid.
Which they did, in droves. To help them do so, he created #SomeoneTellProfMoyo, which scores of tweeters quickly did, turning the hashtag into a trending topic on Twitter within hours.
Most of the tweets observed the obvious effrontery of Moyo chortling about the rand when Zimbabwe’s own dollar disappeared into the stratosphere seven years ago after its exchange rate to the US dollar ran into the trillions. Zimbabwe now uses the US dollar, the South African rand and other foreign currencies as tender.
Monyela retweeted some of the best of the responses to Moyo, including @De_Imperial: “I see the Prof, north of Limpopo, has touched SAfricans on their studio. How is the Zim dollar doing?”
And @Davidmogashoa: “Are You Talking about the same #ProfMoyo Who is using another country’s currency…?”
And @MamaKgahlego: “His hungry people are jumping our fence every hour and SA is giving them jobs, free health care and food. Be warned.”
Some Tweeters attempted to seriously engage Moyo, who is now minister of higher and tertiary education, science and technology, in serious debate, but to no avail.
@kmugova said: “@ProfJNMoyo its more of China’s effect Prof! Slowing Chinese economy affects commodities driven economists like SA.”
Moyo was unimpressed, tweeting: “You believe that crap from the likes of @richardquest on @cnn!”
@nduna9 said: “@ProfJNMoyo SA is facing challenges but I can’t see her reaching the Zim status unless people vote Malema into power.”
To which Moyo retorted: “SA’s exceptionalism is a myth. The African experience has one path with one destiny littered with the same potholes!”
Moyo’s fellow-Zimbabwean, @limukani_mathe, remarked: “@ProfJNMoyo At least they have their Rand!”
Which prompted the telling response from Moyo: “For now yes!”
But Moyo also insisted that “we are not gloating but merely making an observation over a critical matter that the pundits are ignoring!”.
Many tweeters seized the opportunity to remind Moyo of the large amounts of money he allegedly stole many years ago from charities like the Ford Foundation.
When @Mzukisi_Qobo, a well-known Johannesburg commentator on foreign policy, asked, “Are you #StrongerThanTheRand Prof?”, Moyo replied, “I’m not a currency!”.