Mugabe’s Announcement of Declaration of Assets bill: a tactic to Divert attention from failed leadership.
By Dumi Senda, FJCZ Interim Spokesperson.
Zimbabweans should by now be used to the bizarre and inconsistent policy announcements by Mugabe and his beleaguered Zanu pf party.
However, those who are more savvy than Zanu pf spin doctors would give them credit for will also see through the latest announcement by the President that he will be tabling a bill in parliament discussing a new law requiring public officials to declare their assets as a tactic to divert attention from the chronic failures of his government and party.
Only a day after the President caused a media storm for reading the wrong speech in Parliament, the timing of this policy announcement is hardly surprising, and it reveals the disingenuous nature of Zanu pf leadership.
Furthermore, the majority of Zimbabweans who are at the receiving end of the corruption by government officials would find it a hard sell to believe that a mere conjuring up of a policy will have any plausible impact on their lives, given decades of Mugabe and Zanu pf leadership during which corruption multiplied and became institutionalised.
It is therefore rather rich for the biggest beneficiaries of corruption in Zimbabwe to take a moral high ground on an issue which they have fathered and nurtured.
Such pronouncements do not represent a commitment to stop the rot blighting the Zimbabwean economy, but rather mere politicking aimed at securing the power interests of the political classes.
Therefore, Zimbabweans are better advised to demand a new brand of politics based on genuine transparency, accountability and citizen participation, and not mere rhetoric which has become endemic in Zimbabwean politics.
Similarly, Zimbabwean media have a duty to scrutinise such announcements, and not to be seduced by headline grabbing stories, thereby unwittingly perpetuating the violation of democratic rights of Zimbabwean citizens through miss-information.
Recycling ‘failed politics’ will deepen Zimbabwe’s Demise, warns Spokesperson of Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe
Following his interview on Voice of America Studio 7 News on the 9th of September 2015, discussing the manifesto released by the former Zanu pf party member and Vice President of Zimbabwe Joyce Mujuru, in which she promises to ‘save Zimbabwe’, Dumi Senda cautioned Zimbabweans against what he described as “hamster wheel politics”, warning that this will only further deepen the socioeconomic and political crises in Zimbabwe.
Referencing a book by the internationally acclaimed Zimbabwean author No-Violet Bulawayo “We need new names”, Senda said that as difficult as change is to entertain let alone achieve, recycling old politicians will not bring plausible development to Zimbabwe.
According to Senda, what Zimbabwe needs are new ideas underpinned by institutional integrity based on a political system that has clear and implementable processes which can hold any individual accountable.
In the past three decades, said Senda, Zimbabweans have endured politics based on the whims of individuals who flout party and national constitutions at will to sustain their power. This is not sustainable, he insisted.
What is worse, turning to the same old politics which has been proven to be a complete failure, expecting different results is counterproductive, according to Senda.
He acknowledged that it will take a lot of time and hard work for Zimbabwean citizens to have faith in new political parties such as Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe (FJCZ), saying that they (FJCZ) are not asking Zimbabweans to trust them but rather they are asking Zimbabweans to trust themselves to be the guardians of Zimbabwean politics by demanding transparency and accountability.
Senda pointed out that what sets FJCZ apart from the old parties in Zimbabwe is that it is a genuine grassroots democratic party built by Zimbabweans across the globe who are at the forefront of community work and activism and professionals who volunteered their time to contribute towards establishing a party which is stronger than any of its members individually.
One way have ensured that we do not curve in to the ‘failed politics’ symptomatic of Zimbabwean parties is to have citizen participation, transparency and accountability as the unshaken pillars of FJCZ by desisting from clandestine funding sources amongst other things, intimated Senda.
In the end, while we do not have the benefit of the euphoria generated by ‘celebrity politicians’ in Zimbabwe and the access to the unlimited funds for electioneering by those in control of state coffers, what we undoubtedly have is a new vision for Zimbabwe based on extensive consultation with the grassroots through our flagship Community Outreach initiatives, said Senda.
It is this which we believe can give Zimbabwean citizens meaningful ownership of their destiny and stir the country away from the inevitable disaster that awaits us if we do not demonstrate necessary courage to depart from the ‘Business As Usual’ approach to politics and enable unrestrained participation of every citizen, he said.
Courtesy of VOA Studio 7 [Listen to Radio Discussion below]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlkmRuI-aT0
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