Zimbabwe can forget about any financial assistance until the day it begins to respect the rule of law, Germany has said.
“The general framework for rule of law is a critical factor for private sector to get involved in the Zimbabwean economy,” Ambassador Georg Schmidt, Germany’s Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa said.
Ambassador Schmidt, offered Zimbabwe the way out of the country’s economic meltdown and debt trap by offering to assist in repayment of the country’s debt in return for Zimbabwe implementing the economic and political reforms.
“Should the positive signals in the process of constitutional alignment and economic reform prove to be sustainable Germany is prepared to enter into an open dialogue with the Zimbabwean Government on ways out of the economic crisis, including the burdensome debt problem.”
“I came to Harare in this spirit,” Ambassador Schmidt gave the assurance.
Mugabe and his cronies do not deserve this help and thus the more reason they must grab it and be thankful. It is not every day that someone will offer to help pay another person’s bad debts particularly when the said debt is a self-inflicted wound from decades of criminal waste of resources through gross mismanagement, rampant corruption to all out looting and plunder.
Zimbabwe is a very rich country and would not need any helping hand if the country’s vast resources and wealth were managed properly and for the good of all and not wasted to gratify the insatiable greed of the few. In 2005/2006 Zimbabwe’s Marange and Chiadzwa diamonds were valued at a staggering $800 billion, for example. The exploitation of this bounty is now in full swing and yet the country has only collected mere pittance in tax revenue. A few weeks ago the nation learnt that will not receive even the pittance!
The Minister of Information, Professor Jonathan Moyo, twittered two months ago that there was going to be a “dramatic reduction in tax” from sale of Marange diamonds. His colleague, the Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, confirmed the bad news a few weeks later when he told parliament that “alluvial diamonds are finished”.
Government has been struggling to pay the wages of the bloated civil servants let alone pay for anything else. What Minister Chinamasa was failing to explain was why the government was not getting anything from in tax revenue from Marange diamond mining. By telling the nations there were no more diamonds the Minister was saving himself from having to give any more feeble excuses by giving one blatant lie.
Of course Chinamasa was lying that the diamonds were finished because the regime had just signed a deal with the Russians to mine for diamonds in Marange in September 2014. When Mugabe signed the $4.8 billion deal with the Russian to mine Platinum in Darwendale; he also signed a hush-hush deal with them to mine diamonds in Marange with the Zimbabwe Military as their local partner. The two shared the proceeds without having to pay any tax; that is why it was hush-hush.
Apparently this is in fact the norm; the foreign company provide the mining expertise and then share the proceeds from the sale of the diamond with their local partner without having to pay a penny in tax. The late Zanu PF MP Chindori Chininga confirmed this was indeed the practice in his parliamentary report in 2013. The report said the mining was a hectic 24 hours a day and 7 days a week operation and yet no one on the Zimbabwean side had any record of the quantity, quality and value of the diamonds the foreign partners were extracting and shipped out of the country.
The rich and powerful in the Zanu PF ruling elite are all in on the looting and plunder of Marange, including the Army, the Police and Zanu PF leaders including Mugabe himself. According to Partnership Africa Canada’s report, Mugabe made a mouth-watering $2 billion in 2012 alone from his share of the Marange diamonds.
In calling for “economic reforms” Ambassador Schmidt must have meant an end to Zimbabwe’s rampant corrupt but he could not have realized the extent and depth of the rot. How can Mugabe tell his cronies the tax free windfall concessions have all been terminated, especially when he has been so heavily involved himself and took the lion’s share all these years and has amassed unbelievable wealth for himself and his family. The cronies feel they are only playing catch-up!
The firing of former Vice President Joice Mujuru and 16 senior party and government leaders has made everyone in Zanu PF very jumpy. All these years Mugabe has kept the peace in the party by dishing out jobs in the bloated civil service, lucrative contracts, seized former white owned, tax-free diamond mining concessions, etc., etc. to his ever demanding but wasteful party loyalists just to keep them sweet. In the face of the country’s economic meltdown these patronage perks are all that is stopping many of these party loyalists sinking into abject poverty as has already happen to 16% of the country’s population.
If Mugabe was to end the system of political patronage now Zanu PF loyalists affected will never see it as a necessity for economic recovery but rather as the on-going political purge in the party. Purging Mujuru and those close to her is one thing but to purge the whole Zanu PF body-politic is political suicide.
Mugabe will never ever address the problem of mismanagement and corruption at the heart of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown because he would have to end his political patronage system of rewarding corrupt and wasteful party loyalists. He needs their blind loyalty to stay in power now more than ever because the regime’s failed economic policies and political repression has made Zanu PF unelectable without vote rigging.
The European Union has already promised Harare $1.28 million to fund the process of aligning Zimbabwe’s existing laws to the 2013 Copac constitution. Ambassador, this is a waste of time and money because the Copac constitution alone will never delivered free and fair elections, restore law and order, restore property rights, etc. as the 2013 elections have already shown.
What Zimbabwe need to have ALL the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement necessary for free and fair election and the restoration of all the freedoms and basic humans implemented. Since Zanu PF and MDC were the parties in the GNU who failed to get even one of the reform implemented it would be naïve not believe that with Zanu PF on its own can ever be trusted to implement any of these reforms.
Mugabe and Zanu PF must step down so that a body can be appointed to implement ALL the democratic reforms.
What Mugabe and his cronies have to realize is that the current economic system that has pushed unemployment rate to nauseating height of 90%, has forced 16% of the people into a life of abject poverty, etc. is socially, morally and politically unsustainable. Zimbabwe is sitting on a social time-bomb because no people can be expected to endure economic hardships that have denying them their humanity and hope forever without protesting. The limit of what Zimbabweans will endured has now been reached as can be seen by the growing public unrest.
Germany is offering Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies a way out of the economic nightmare of the economic meltdown by helping organise and fund economic recovery and Zimbabwe ballooning national debt. Germany has the technical know-how and experience given that it was in total economic ruins after the Second World War but soon emerged as Europe’s economic power house it is today. This is an offer only a madman would refuse; all Mugabe has to do now is step down. But by refusing to step down, Mugabe will per se have elected that he will be forced out power the Muammar Gaddafi way!
24 Replies to “No Money Until Observe Rule of Law, Germany tells Zimbabwe”
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very good of you zimeye to demonise african leaders as long as they dont tow the line and your western way of seeing things.we had the british capitalist plundering zimbabwe for over hundred years,what did they leave for the africans,a few tarred single lane roads, aids and shit.we are not blind at all and will not be hoodwinked witth such stupid and negative reporting.this kind of reporting has politcal bias at its worst.as long as murungu is not having a say in zimbambwe,the country will continue to be ridiculed and its voted leadership demonised.pasi ne zimeye
very good of you zimeye to demonise african leaders as long as they dont tow the line and your western way of seeing things.we had the british capitalist plundering zimbabwe for over hundred years,what did they leave for the africans,a few tarred single lane roads, aids and shit.we are not blind at all and will not be hoodwinked witth such stupid and negative reporting.this kind of reporting has politcal bias at its worst.as long as murungu is not having a say in zimbambwe,the country will continue to be ridiculed and its voted leadership demonised.pasi ne zimeye
@ Patrick
Many Zimbabweans have use the name of God as an excuse for allowing tyrants like Mugabe to ride roughshod over the nation’s hopes and dreams. They prayed for God to do something about it so they did not have to lift a finger.
The Children of Israel had to undertake the arduous 40-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and fought many wars along the way. God could have saved them the long journey and fought all their wars for them but He did not because this was something the people could do for themselves.
Stopping the criminal waste of human and material resources by Mugabe and his cronies is something Zimbabweans can and should do for themselves but they are too lazy to. And so they are asking God to do everything, absolutely everything, for them. Well God certainly has better things to do than listen to such frivolous nonsense and rightly so too!.
@ Patrick
Many Zimbabweans have use the name of God as an excuse for allowing tyrants like Mugabe to ride roughshod over the nation’s hopes and dreams. They prayed for God to do something about it so they did not have to lift a finger.
The Children of Israel had to undertake the arduous 40-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and fought many wars along the way. God could have saved them the long journey and fought all their wars for them but He did not because this was something the people could do for themselves.
Stopping the criminal waste of human and material resources by Mugabe and his cronies is something Zimbabweans can and should do for themselves but they are too lazy to. And so they are asking God to do everything, absolutely everything, for them. Well God certainly has better things to do than listen to such frivolous nonsense and rightly so too!.
@ Patrick
I agree Mugabe and his cronies have a lot to lose by stepping down but what they must also realize is that be hanging on to the bitter end they will lose everything. Mugabe must know that whilst the nation would have turned a blind eye to his family keeping one or two of the looted farms the people will not do so with the 13 or so farms the Mugabes have.
In a country where millions have been forced to live in total abject poverty the extravagancies of Mugabe’s birthday parties, wedding parties has left millions choking with anger. When many fathers could not give their daughters even one single decent meal Mugabe has spoiling his with $5 million wedding, a farm with 50 heads of cattle, two storey house, etc., etc. Common sense and common justice demands restitution: Bona got an education worth billions of dollars at taxpayers’ expense, it is only right that she should not be allowed to keep all the looted wealth too!
If the nation is forced to have street riots to achieve regime change then many of Mugabe’s cronies must expect the angry mob to demand instant satisfactions by mitting out punishment on those who had caused them so much suffering and despair. By holding on to power to the bitter end Mugabe and his cronies have per se accepted a bitter end – it is not for them but the people to decide just how bitter that end will be for them!
@ Patrick
I agree Mugabe and his cronies have a lot to lose by stepping down but what they must also realize is that be hanging on to the bitter end they will lose everything. Mugabe must know that whilst the nation would have turned a blind eye to his family keeping one or two of the looted farms the people will not do so with the 13 or so farms the Mugabes have.
In a country where millions have been forced to live in total abject poverty the extravagancies of Mugabe’s birthday parties, wedding parties has left millions choking with anger. When many fathers could not give their daughters even one single decent meal Mugabe has spoiling his with $5 million wedding, a farm with 50 heads of cattle, two storey house, etc., etc. Common sense and common justice demands restitution: Bona got an education worth billions of dollars at taxpayers’ expense, it is only right that she should not be allowed to keep all the looted wealth too!
If the nation is forced to have street riots to achieve regime change then many of Mugabe’s cronies must expect the angry mob to demand instant satisfactions by mitting out punishment on those who had caused them so much suffering and despair. By holding on to power to the bitter end Mugabe and his cronies have per se accepted a bitter end – it is not for them but the people to decide just how bitter that end will be for them!
We took up arms to end white oppression because we refused to accept that whites are superior to us and yet we have treated our black leaders as if they were gods. Every time Zimbabweans pray for God’s help as if we are totally helpless to stop what is going on in the country, as if we are totally helpless before these super mortals – our leaders – I hang my head with shame.
We took up arms to end white oppression because we refused to accept that whites are superior to us and yet we have treated our black leaders as if they were gods. Every time Zimbabweans pray for God’s help as if we are totally helpless to stop what is going on in the country, as if we are totally helpless before these super mortals – our leaders – I hang my head with shame.
President Mugabe has too much to lose to give up power now; he is beefing up the security sector in preparation for a show down he knows is coming. I cannot see what else can be done to avoid the show down!
President Mugabe has too much to lose to give up power now; he is beefing up the security sector in preparation for a show down he knows is coming. I cannot see what else can be done to avoid the show down!
True, but with the national economy shrinking even faster than ever are they catching up or are they chasing their own tails like kittens?
True, but with the national economy shrinking even faster than ever are they catching up or are they chasing their own tails like kittens?
Surely President Mugabe and his fellow Zanu PF leadership must know by now that the present situation cannot continue for much longer.
Surely President Mugabe and his fellow Zanu PF leadership must know by now that the present situation cannot continue for much longer.
The only people who are really making a killing with all the looting and plunder taking place in Marange are the foreigners. Mugabe got his $2 billion in 2012 but must be struggling to spend it, there is a limit to how many designer suits, shoes, etc. a man can have. The foreigners are shipping the diamonds out of Zimbabwe and there is a whole city in India based on Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds. Millions of Indians are now rich and will be rich for generations to come thanks to the diamonds from Marange which they are getting for a song!
This generation has to hang our heads in shame that we allowed such looting and plunder to take place under our very noses and never said a word!
The only people who are really making a killing with all the looting and plunder taking place in Marange are the foreigners. Mugabe got his $2 billion in 2012 but must be struggling to spend it, there is a limit to how many designer suits, shoes, etc. a man can have. The foreigners are shipping the diamonds out of Zimbabwe and there is a whole city in India based on Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds. Millions of Indians are now rich and will be rich for generations to come thanks to the diamonds from Marange which they are getting for a song!
This generation has to hang our heads in shame that we allowed such looting and plunder to take place under our very noses and never said a word!
An economic system that creates so much misery that 90% of the people have to eke a living from kiya kiya, 16% are now living in abject poverty, etc. is socially and politically unsustainable. The protests at many Universities last week are the start of what is to come if we do not change the system.
The choice before Mugabe and Zanu PF is either to step down peacefully or be forced to do so as a result of street protests or worse. They are fooling themselves in thinking they can hang on to their privileged lifestyles and resist regime change forever.
An economic system that creates so much misery that 90% of the people have to eke a living from kiya kiya, 16% are now living in abject poverty, etc. is socially and politically unsustainable. The protests at many Universities last week are the start of what is to come if we do not change the system.
The choice before Mugabe and Zanu PF is either to step down peacefully or be forced to do so as a result of street protests or worse. They are fooling themselves in thinking they can hang on to their privileged lifestyles and resist regime change forever.
Grace does not have her health so next President???
Grace does not have her health so next President???
Can Mugabe step down? I dont see it doable because he wants to but is being forced to remain there by those who are playing catch-up to his riches. They feel they will get poor faster if he leaves now so they want another five to ten years of amassing wealth even if it means installing Grace as president.
Can Mugabe step down? I dont see it doable because he wants to but is being forced to remain there by those who are playing catch-up to his riches. They feel they will get poor faster if he leaves now so they want another five to ten years of amassing wealth even if it means installing Grace as president.
It will be interesting to see what RGM does with his 2 billions worth of diamonds in his coffin. And then it gets more interesting! Does he think he can then bribe God with them. You see God gave this nation its national riches for ALL its people. Read James Chapter 5. And then there is the story about Lazarus and the rich man. A special judgment for those who have trampled on the heads of the poor?????? Repent!
It will be interesting to see what RGM does with his 2 billions worth of diamonds in his coffin. And then it gets more interesting! Does he think he can then bribe God with them. You see God gave this nation its national riches for ALL its people. Read James Chapter 5. And then there is the story about Lazarus and the rich man. A special judgment for those who have trampled on the heads of the poor?????? Repent!