What the Zany is going on?

By Muckraker | May. 17, 2024

Neville Mutsvangwa boarding a prison truck recently.

THE Zany party’s motormouth Chris Mutsvangwa is the gif that keeps giving because he has a hard time keeping his trap shut for any substantial period of time, even when the stakes are high.

The sesquipedalian is betting the life of his son, Neville, in taking on the man who deputises our owner, the Generari, who many think will take over as our owner once the current one exhausts his lease agreement, whenever that will be.

Mutsvangwa has been on the attack since “dim-witted” Neville was arrested movie-style by the men who uphold our country’s laws (Muck thinks they pretend to uphold the virtues, depending on who has given them the order. And yes, Muck can publicly shame you as dim-witted if you can publicly advertise just how much and how frequently you are breaking the law and profit from the transgression, on social media).

He claimed that he had “established beyond any doubt” that Mnangagwa had not instigated the arrest of his son, and that “it is somebody else, who thinks that he is wearing the shoes of the head of state to manipulate the relationship between me and the president”.

The Generari, he claimed, was “trying to abuse the judiciary system, hoping that I can have an attitude against the state” because his son was “innocent”.

So, no point in waiting for the courts to determine Neville’s innocence then? In his fury, he told us that a lot more was going on and that the arrest of his son was because the Zany party was playing Game of Thrones and somehow, his “very innocent” 44-year-old son with a fondness of sharing stuff he is doing on social media is being used as leverage on him.

“You know, the gate to power according to the constitution is through an election, not through games and shenanigans and subterfuge … I don’t answer to ambitious individuals,” Mutsvangwa fumed.

Confronting the Generari

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To Muck’s hilarity, he was at pains to portray his relationship with our owner as close. Right. He is very close to the man who fired him for double dipping in February — for refusing to relinquish his other character as the man who bends the veterans of the liberation war to his will or for own ends. He wanted to have his cake and eat it, a thing only reserved for our owner, his brood and Dr Amai The Second.

It takes some doing to accuse the former head of military with a reputation as a hardman forged in the liberation struggle to question the Generari’s credentials. Muck would not dream of such affront.

Why was Neville arrested when Mutsvangwa and his minister wife were out of the country?

Muck would retort that if they were so powerful, enough to challenge the Generari, they should have rushed back to get him out? Can they take the Genarari head-on?

The game of thrones is like Russian roulette, you play to win, and losers lose their heads. It may explain Mutsvangwa’s desperate attempt to paint his closeness with our owner.

“They think through their post-independence proximity to the president they can influence him against me, or me against him. It’s an impossibly long shot for the power ambitious to ever think they can drive a wedge into such a long, strong and revolutionary acquaintance between me and the president,” Mutsvangwa said.

“Persecuting my son as a carrot and stick to that nefarious enterprise will never yield the much-craved outcome.”

Shots fired. The riposte may not be pretty. Muck, like many Zimbos, is keenly watching the drama.

AI vs patriotism

So, according to one daily noise paper, the heritage-based education 2024-30 curriculum framework foisted on our schools is now in force, starting from this month.

The problem, it was revealed, someone forgot to design a syllabus for it, but ordered everyone from the “headmasters, teachers, parents, business people and the community” to ensure its success.

When it fails, our owners could always have their pick on who to blame. The stupidity of such a strategy and rank incompetence on the part of education authorities is not lost on Muck, who thinks it is part of a long-term strategy by our owners to reduce the people of this country to dull zombies, who will stop questioning decisions made by our glorious leaders or quibble about such nonsense as human rights, purchasing power parity, high inflation or why having bread on the breakfast table is not a farfetched demand.

Muck is moved, again to reprise that great man, Nelson Mandela’s take on how the corrupt powerful are destroying our beloved country: “Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long-range missiles ... It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examination by students. The collapse of education is the collapse of the nation.”

How else can one justify legislated patriotism? Zimbabwe’s education is not about preparing the children to face a rapidly changing globe underpinned by 5G technology and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), but to produce “manifestation of patriotism, Ubuntu, volunteerism, honesty and pride in being Zimbabwean”.

Of fudged inflation, reality

The reality of Zimbabwe’s high inflation and rapid devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar was exposed by reports that our tax agency paid for 85 vehicles, but lost 61 of those to inflation and exchange rate demons.

According to a report by the Auditor-General, Zimra suffered a loss of ZW$209 million or US$1,7 million, at the official exchange rate after paying for 35 Toyota Hilux double-cabs and 50 Toyota Corolla vehicles, which were never delivered.

This was because the Zimbabwe dollar equivalent paid by the tax collector was lost to inflation. And the government has been keen to tell us that inflation was under control.

Well, the truth always comes out eventually, and the taxman is finding out the hard way that propaganda and reality on the ground are very different worlds.

In defence of the ZiG

Government’s defence of the world’s first police supported currency, the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) has reached ridiculous levels. The police have reported arresting 224 forex dealers and freezing 90 bank accounts in a bid “to protect ZiG integrity”.

Among those to fall foul of this newfound patriotism among our law enforcers was a Macheke school teacher for approaching undercover police detectives to exchange his ZiG bank balance for US dollars.

The money changers, the police thundered, were sabotaging the country’s economy and the teacher’s efforts to stretch the purchasing power of his hard-earned ZiG was detrimental to Zimbabwe’s recovery efforts.

Muck thinks if the ZiG needs such enforcement, let us cut our losses now and move on to the next currency, one that will work in this country without selfish restrictions.