Prime Minister In The President's Office
It turns out Zimbabwe's new prime minister was not catered for in the budget drawn up and announced by Patrick Chinamasa just before the MDC agreed to join government.
Because there is no specific budget for his office, I understand Tsvangirai's office is currently living off the budget of the Office of The President. Which means we can say, just as with the Ministers of State in the President's office, the Prime Minister's Office should also be known as the Prime Minister In The President's Office.
You will recall that Chinamasa budgeted a blanket US$30 million in salaries for the civil service. In the breakdown of the ministerial allocations, Tsvangirai office is missing. It is unclear why this was so, especially considering the ZANU PF position back then of trying to show SADC that it was bending over backwards to accommodate the MDC and its leader.
Still, it all works out fine. I doubt that the US$30million will mean anything at all to this new monstrous behemoth we now have for a government. Eventually to total 71 ministers when the governors are put in place, it will be further expanded when time comes to appoint ambassadors and other senor civil servants.
The MDC is fighting hard to get as many of its people in there as possible.
It is a disappointment to some of us that the culture of ZANU PF, the patronage and loyalty-buying culture, refuses to die.
Most people in Zimbabwe now know that, just last month, after settling in at the Town House in Harare, the opposition went on a massive hiring spree of its supporters in the city for menial council jobs.
Party structures in Mbare, Glen-Norah, Highfields, Glen View and many other poor suburbs were instructed to herd as many people as wanted to sweep the streets and so on and send them on to the Town House. They are now hired, and receiving their salaries, while the city itself continues without water, with sewage flowing in the streets, citizens dying of cholera and rubbish still piled high.
I certainly haven't noticed any difference this MDC army of new workers has made to the city landscape since they were hired. The city is still pretty much a dump.
Perhaps they do not have any money yet. Which would beg the question: Where did the MDC Council find the money for salaries for hundreds of its supporters hired as payback for voting "correctly" in the council elections? Was that good prioritisation in a city facing such urgent needs?
This is a ZANU PF disease and the MDC seems to have caught the fever. No matter which way you look at it, this is the continuation of a culture that should be killed and stomped on - it is the route towards one-party stateism, where people are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs or other favours from the party that holds all the strings and controls their lives and livelihoods.
It is all depressing stuff, don't you think? And we thought all along that the vices will die with ZANU PF.
Because there is no specific budget for his office, I understand Tsvangirai's office is currently living off the budget of the Office of The President. Which means we can say, just as with the Ministers of State in the President's office, the Prime Minister's Office should also be known as the Prime Minister In The President's Office.
You will recall that Chinamasa budgeted a blanket US$30 million in salaries for the civil service. In the breakdown of the ministerial allocations, Tsvangirai office is missing. It is unclear why this was so, especially considering the ZANU PF position back then of trying to show SADC that it was bending over backwards to accommodate the MDC and its leader.
Still, it all works out fine. I doubt that the US$30million will mean anything at all to this new monstrous behemoth we now have for a government. Eventually to total 71 ministers when the governors are put in place, it will be further expanded when time comes to appoint ambassadors and other senor civil servants.
The MDC is fighting hard to get as many of its people in there as possible.
It is a disappointment to some of us that the culture of ZANU PF, the patronage and loyalty-buying culture, refuses to die.
Most people in Zimbabwe now know that, just last month, after settling in at the Town House in Harare, the opposition went on a massive hiring spree of its supporters in the city for menial council jobs.
Party structures in Mbare, Glen-Norah, Highfields, Glen View and many other poor suburbs were instructed to herd as many people as wanted to sweep the streets and so on and send them on to the Town House. They are now hired, and receiving their salaries, while the city itself continues without water, with sewage flowing in the streets, citizens dying of cholera and rubbish still piled high.
I certainly haven't noticed any difference this MDC army of new workers has made to the city landscape since they were hired. The city is still pretty much a dump.
Perhaps they do not have any money yet. Which would beg the question: Where did the MDC Council find the money for salaries for hundreds of its supporters hired as payback for voting "correctly" in the council elections? Was that good prioritisation in a city facing such urgent needs?
This is a ZANU PF disease and the MDC seems to have caught the fever. No matter which way you look at it, this is the continuation of a culture that should be killed and stomped on - it is the route towards one-party stateism, where people are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs or other favours from the party that holds all the strings and controls their lives and livelihoods.
It is all depressing stuff, don't you think? And we thought all along that the vices will die with ZANU PF.
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Mugabe is juggling again, buying some time. He's been shockingly effective at it; he throws a little hope out here and there, just enough to maintain his position. What hope doesn't buy him, thuggery usually does.
ReplyDeleteI understand he had a hell of a birthday party for himself. That sort of reminds me of Jean-Claude Duvalier's wedding; millions of poor Haitians, with almost nothing of a life and no hope, were graciously allowed a little peek at the happy couple as they zoomed through the streets of Port-Au-Prince. So nice of these tyrants to let the riff-raff know about how great their parties are.
There is nothing wrong with one celebrating their birthday, of course it will be a great day for them. the fact that multitudes are suffering does not mean that even those who can afford should also live as destitutes.
ReplyDeleteThe suffering of the people in Zimbabwe should not be attributed to one person Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, that is one lie which no sane mind should buy.
really like this blog.
ReplyDeleteyou do a better job than the bbc..)
kindest
hans
It is the end of an era. The tyrannical corporate double-minded mindset is concluding. If we examine the cycles within the Mayan Creation Calendar, here we discover the age of ethics is on our horizon. However, before its arrival the old world system of corruption and greed must be allowed its last breath in a New World Order governed by a manifestation of an Antichrist.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the last and shortest cycle of ethics, the creation will then have been perfected allowing for zero-point time, and the Great Harvest, the process completed, the Garden restored to all its splendor, a very magic time is ahead.
The suffering of the people in Zimbabwe should not be attributed to one person Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, that is one lie which no sane mind should buy.
ReplyDeleteNo sane person could DENY it. Zimbabwe has everything needed for a relatively prosperous society, and yet...
We in America are all too familiar with what using hatred as a dividing tool can do for corrupt politicians. Mugabe has used it to a degree that probably makes our own Republicans envious.
I agree JR, especially on the use of hate language by Mugabe. He has perfected the art, yet you should see him now with Tsvangirai, they seem to be the best of friends.
ReplyDeleteYet some people out there take his hate words so seriously that they have killed for those words.
Indeed, I can honestly say that if Mugabe was not president of Zimbabwe in 2000 or even 2002, we would not have ended up where we are now.