Response to Sunday Times article

Recently a certain Dr Greg Mills came back from Zimbabwe with an effervescent prognosis of a $100-billion dollar economy that one of the parties is promising to bring to Zimbabwe. From the tone of his article Dr Mills has to be one of the most gullible people to have ever walked the face of this earth.

This Wednesday a friend of mine, a white Portuguese living in Zimbabwe, slept over at my house on a business trip to Johannesburg.

In our discussions he gave Zimbabwe's economy no chance of fully recovering. According to him the leadership culture is simply not right across the board. According to him the companies left are basically retail operations which buy some stock and if they make any profit 'they spend it on flashy cars and girlfriends.' The politicians are all also trying to use public office to get enough money to buy flashy cars and have multiple girlfriends.

I couldn't agree with him more. Look at the girlfriend stories that have been pursuing Morgan Tsvangirai.

I notice that Dr Mills doesn't even mention corruption as a problem. He seems to more interested in shoring up support for the MDC by mentioning impressive pie-in-the-sky economic figures that the MDC 'hope' to achieve. The mechanics of exactly how these figures will be achieved are not a concern of his. You cannot move a mountain unless you know to dig it up, and Mr Mills is simply telling us 'we will move the mountain to over there.' How?

The facts of what is happening here and now, that the MDC has become part of the corruption problem, are ignored. Mind you corruption is not just about the money being diverted to the wrong pockets. The reason why people seek clandestine means to divert the money is that they will be lacking the right skills and ability to correctly perform the task required.

In the end what happens is that the correct skills are not used for the task meaning that it is doomed to fail even before it starts. When the failure does happen, no correct diagnosis and remedial action will be taken because of the cover up and crony protection that accompanies corruption. There is no way that a corrupt entity is going to achieve impressive economic figures. Zanu-PF taught us that. The MDC already have their toes is Zanu-PF's sandals in terms of corruption. What is left is for them to grab the jackboots.

I do not know whether Dr Mills thinks we Zimbabweans are kids who can be mollified by promises of sweets (Nyarara mwanangu. Baba vachauya nemasweets. Be quiet my child, Dad is going to bring sweets). His mentions of a $100-billion economy amounts to just that. An empty promise, that any sensible person will not make unless they are targeting very gullible people, or people they believe to be very gullible like a toddler.

While he correctly identifies patronage is being one of the problems of Zanu-PF, he doesn't mention that the MDC already suffers from the same cancer with Morgan Tsvangirai accused of having a very large 'kitchen cabinet' by his MDC colleagues. These are people who have no official role in the MDC or in government but claim or seem to derive authority from their mere personal association with the prime minister.

Some are eventually slotted into officials roles, not out of any kind of legitimate requirement, but as a way of ensuring that they benefit from their association with higher ups. These are not the symptoms of a party that has the capability to lead a billion dollar economic recovery. These are the symptoms that we saw and ignored in Zanu-PF to our great peril. Dr Mills is essentially telling us to ignore them in the MDC now.

I hope that we do not all share his gullibility.