Editorial Comment

RECENTLY, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa took a peek at the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God pastors’ guiding principles he, like Biblical Saul on his way to Damascus, had an interesting revelation that saw him proclaim thus: “Archbishop (Ezekiel) Guti, what you have read for your pastors has motivated me; I will read this to my ministers. They have been acting out of line lately and this has taken a toll on development. They should be honest and hardworking, for the scripture says we should eat of our own sweat. They should also seek further knowledge as well as live humble lives.”

But one just hopes that, for once, the President does what he threatens to do because past experience has crudely taught us that the man never really means what he says. In fact, this is not the first time that he has moaned about his lousy Cabinet. This is, in fact, the umpteenth time and nothing has come out of his idle threats.

The President’s remarks on the calibre of ministers come as no surprise really given the extraordinary decisions his Cabinet ministers make after spending precious long hours deliberately on much ado about nothing. One such decision is their collective wisdom to set up a roller meal committee to monitor the distribution of the now scarce staple commodity.

Honestly, it is quite flabbergasting that whole grown-ups – who we thought were the cream in terms of leadership, collectively decide to form a roller meal committee in a country that is hardly productive. So the committee wants to just sit there and monitor the distribution of mealie-meal whose origins it does not even know when the government is currently clueless on where to source the maize to make the roller meal.

These guys’ thinking is quite incredible! Should these ministers not be making better use of their time and minds crafting strategies that spur this country into being productive? Should the ministers not have instead set up an irrigation committee that would make sure much of the idle water in our dams is fully utilised? Should the ministers not have instead set up a committee to make sure that everything is in place for the coming winter season so that the country grows enough wheat to help reduce the importation of the grain?

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Why is Mnangagwa even telling us about how useless his ministers are? Why can’t he just fire the whole lot and find others? We are pretty sure there are many capable leaders out there who are simply not being given the chance to excel.

The President should set an example with this lot so that we may start to take him seriously about his promises to make this country a middle-income economy by 2030. Otherwise, at this rate, Zimbabwe will be a Stone Age economy by 2030.