Dear Cabinet and Politburo members
I sincerely hope when the criminals appeal to the Supreme Court against both conviction and sentence, the competent court of appeal will rule that the judge who heard the case actually erred in not passing capital sentence on these criminals because this was obviously premeditated murder.
I am happy that our annual people’s conference roared into life this week… it is that time of the year again when we meet as the leadership of the people to hear what they want done for them.
What I can tell you Cdes is that the people are happy — very happy — especially after we came up with the brilliant idea of bond notes, which solved the cash shortages in no time.
Now, we have to focus on the economy to fullfill the target set out under our Zim-Asset economic blueprint. From records that I am getting from hard working people like Cde Saviour and others on the ground, we certainly are on course to surpass the target of 2,2 million new jobs that we set for ourselves.
Only this week, the Tokwe Mukosi Dam project was completed and it is set to revolutionise agriculture in this country. This comes barely weeks after I officially commissioned the up-graded Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport. We have just embarked on the billion-dollar dualisation of the Beitbridge-Chirundu highway, while the expansion of the Kariba South power station is nearing completion. There are just too many projects that we are working on. Inside five years, Air Zimbabwe will be a world-class airline.
So we should all take this conference as an opportunity to celebrate our landmark achievements as a party, achievements that will carry us into the 2018 elections. I am told Morgan and others in the opposition are talking about a grand coalition.
They can go ahead and coalesce among themselves, but there is no greater coalition other than a coalition with the people. We are the best leaders this country has ever had. Let us pat ourselves on the back. This is time for us to celebrate and enjoy ourselves. We deserve it!
Kindest Regards
Yours Sincerely
ME
… AND CZ’S NOTEBOOK
Foolish!
Zimbos love clapping hands. They can clap hands and cheer for anything under the sun. Only recently, they were clapping hands and dancing their tails off after government announced that it was allowing the Chinese to dualise the road from Beitbridge to Harare for close to US$1 billion.
One only realises that there is nothing to celebrate about when they get to know that a few years ago, a consortium of local contractors offered to dualise the whole stretch from Beitbridge to Harare to Chirundu for only US$883 million, but the tender was cancelled after they refused to pay bribes to government officials. Now we are going to pay more than three-fold for the very same road!
The other thing is that we love to clap for people who are literally doing nothing. This road should have been upgraded 35 years ago, but we are clapping hands because we have been promised that it will be upgraded with a loan that we don’t know how it will be re-paid.
The Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu road was completed in 1961 and had its 20-year lifespan exhausted in 1981 when the country had just a few thousand vehicles; 35 years later, the country has a vehicular population of more than 1,3 million, making the road woefully narrow and very dangerous for motorists. We still clap hands for this mediocrity!
African
Dr CZ was proudly born a pessimist, so he is always very safe in the comfort of this position as the onus is always on others to prove him wrong. Because he is incurably skeptical of human ability to do good for others, Yours Truly was conspicuous by his absence from the maddening crowds that were stampeding to congratulate out-going Gambian ruler, Yahya Jammeh, for promptly conceding defeat in an election held on December 1.
It was too good to be true. In fact this was unAfrican. So Dr CZ was unable to say anything… thankfully before he had found his voice, Jammeh was back to his African senses; he went on to announce that on second thought, he was rejecting his defeat to Adama Barrow which he had previously conceded. In other words, Jammeh was “un-conceding”, if we can put it that way. This is the Africa that we have to accept, not the fake one that had tried to trick us into fools!
Dr CZ has been an African all his life. It is also for this very reason that he has not commented on the talk about Angolan strongman, Jose Dos Santos, vamoosing. Why Dr CZ has not found this rumour worthy of his important attention is because it did not come from the horse’s mouth.
Dos Santos did not say he was not going to contest the next elections, so until he says it himself, it will remain the rumour that it is.
Knowing African leaders as we now do, even if he has said it himself, you can only trust his word after seeing his back. Usually the rumour of an Africa leader going is planted by the leader himself, to gauge the mood so that they can pitch their strategy appropriately. When the people appear too excited that the leader is finally going, then some hired mouths will come forward to publicly beg the leader to please stay a bit longer “for the sake of the country and the people”. Then the leader would invest state resources to sell this notion of their indispensability. Everything is done in the interest of “the people”. They don’t call it Africa for nothing!
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Joseph Made
Sorry!
Whoever said it never rains but pours should certainly have coined this proverb with Dr CZ’s homeboy — veteran journalist, Geoff Nyarota — in mind. The brother’s troubles seem to multiple by the day. It appears like one thing the brother learnt from his long media career is that one can easily earn a living from lawsuits, but in his case, he appears unfortunate as to always pick the wrong playmates. In the case of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), which he happened to have founded, Nyarota’s strategy has boomeranged horribly. After suing the media house, he first won and was awarded US$91 000 by an arbitrator.
And the veteran journalist started doing his budget, even telling his livid creditors that he would be squaring them off once his windfall hits his account.
But the stubborn ANZ appealed against the award at the Labour Court, which threw out the award. The matter ended up at the Supreme Court, which upheld the Labour Court’s decision. That was not the end of the fight.
ANZ then took the fight to him, demanding the US$60 000 the brother milked from it under the guise of selling a website to the media house.
Only recently, the court ruled that Nyarota re-pays the money. This should be a real blow for the former chairman of the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry, who was the editor of the old Daily News. Last time, Dr CZ suggested that the easiest way of fool-proofing his gambles was to sue the Supreme Court itself.
The Daily News this week described the chap as “a troubled hack with an uncanny knack of getting himself into unnecessary difficulties”. We cannot agree more. It is sad that people choose to leave behind this sort of legacy.
Apologies
Still on homeboys that do not make Dr CZ very proud at all, it is already mid-December and the Minister of Agriculture, Cde Dr Joseph Made is talking of a “pre-planting” cotton price of US$0,55 per kilogramme. Anyone with elementary knowledge of farming should know that cotton is planted in October, latest.
This is a message that should have been given to farmers in April or earlier, that is if anyone claims to be planning anything for our farming. It looks like Cde-Dr Made is sincerely unaware of this. We cannot blame him for this because in his unique case, ignorance is a valid defence!
cznotebook@yahoo.co.uk
By CZ
