Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The country’s Mid Term Review as presented by Finance Prophet Chinamasa (FPC) reads like a script in the semantics of presenting bad economics and gloomy futures.
Mind you despite his being FPC, don’t rush to him with whinings for miracle bond notes, he simply predicts dark finance futures, not give financial windfalls.
A statistical unravelling (filled with platitudes, “I immensely benefited from the guidance and support I continue to receive from His Excellency the President, as well as the two Honourable Vice Presidents”.) of a nation well geared on the path to the dark caverns of this 21st century and delivered with enough zippy cheer to draw bankrupt investors.
The gentleman FPC now well versed in the arts of his job tried as much as he could to come across as the carrier of ‘usual’ information, don’t panic or worry this is just another banality of power. Just another Finance Minister telling the negatives well balanced against the usual ills of this troubled Munhumutapa kingdom.
He regularly threw cheesy confetti.
“I am also pleased to report on progress with Government’s anti-corruption drive..”
“Mr Speaker Sir, in the financial sector, we have also been able to deepen financial stability..”
“In agriculture, notable successes are also being experienced..”
“Already, notable gains were registered..”
Notable, notable and yes this is a notable apocryphal sermon on a non-existant paradise coming FPC.
Listen from the nebulous gloom of a half-sleep afternoon-doze and you may think Zimbabwe is a struggling but creeping-out country; coming from under some economic rubble, and not actually sliding back under one.
Maybe it’s the positive spirit fed us all these days.
The power of being positive celebrated across the globe; in Talk Shows with mascaraed Hosts smiling out, “think big and bright and the future will take your hand towards your destiny”); in synagogues every Sunday (“talk dark and bleak and that will be upon you in an instant”, the pastor says before taking a swig from a bottle of mineral water. The City Council suspects most to be contaminated with sewerage by the way).
The FPC did well as a speaker, am not sure about the financial ramifications and their real meaning considering the flexible ability of numbers to be concocted to say anything.
However despite all the sunshine FP Chinamasa tried to paint, to hoarse out (his voice does that) one part of his presentation gave the unmitigated gloom on show in this sunshine paradise.
The gloom is both figurative and financial whilst the sunshine is literal.
Addicted to tables and charts like all Finance people across the world (lawyers are addicted to quoting dead cases; mothers to neighbours and journalists quote anything that has a tongue), Chinamasa had a Sectoral Growth Table which sold him out about the cranky piece of biltong he was selling.
Of the 15 sectors listed on the table only two maintained their positive trajectory since the beginning of the year. About 13% of Zimbabwe has some kind of sun in the future. Whilst the remaining 87% is mired in gothic shrouds of darkness and death with sharp ends pointing downwards.
Agriculture -4.2. Electricity and Water -21.8. Public Adminstration-5.0.
The other 13 are really dark predictions which do away with all the semantics about “Mr Speaker Sir i rise” because you are falling Mr FPC.
The first of the positive ones is the Mining and Quarrying sector which originally the Prophet had foreseen to grow by about 1,6 percent but has since had a corrective spiritual insight which shows that it shall actually surpass that modest number and grow by 13,2. (Let’s all stand and give a shout).
Chiadzwa diamonds are allegedly all gone from the God-given top soil and much of what is left is deep underground whilst the government has just amalgamated the many Sino-eyed fellas littering Marange into one mammal set to pilfer everything, yet the sector is still heading for light.
That would still be great if we knew what happened to the US$15 billion FPC, now that we don’t we are not sure whether to be happy or to wait for another shady episode of financial conspiracy.
The other bright light going into the future is the all-abiding Zimbabwean hallmark of addiction to knowledge, education.
In the midst of an El Nino induced drought; the coming Bond notes; the corruption enriching the wrong guys and everything whacky about the country, education has come up with flying colours again.
After the initial projection for growth by 1,3% it has been upgraded to 2,6 and that’s a whammy fact. Whammy here means astounding but infuriating.
What is it about education that Zimbabweans love so much? What’s the use of reading Mpho’s Search and Takadini, such that we are gobbling more information at a time of such peril and crisis? That’s not a rhetoric question, I need an answer.
If there is one thing that our present state has revealed it’s the sometimes uselessness of these PhD’s, Doctorates and certificates. With our high, African high literacy, rate we have still failed to negotiate the sharp curves of our political differences and plunged the country into a craggy crevice where time after time we smack each other bloody.
Of course it’s one side doing most of the smacking.
We have failed to differentiate feelings from facts, and our government today is an emotional wreck suffering from Liberasmosis.
Liberasmosis is the psychological deformity of living with the sub-conscious aim to hurt those not born when you fought for independence. Dr Me discovered that disease.
One foreign consultant invited to investigate some climate change phenomena here gave her summation of Zimbabweans on the way back.
“One of your strengths, which has become a weakness again, is that you are too polite in Zimbabwe”, she said, jumped on the plane and was gone.
“It’s the education”, I shouted back but she was already gone. Gone back to those not polite but with functioning economies.
Education has killed our primal instincts and the animal part of our being is gone leaving us with a genetically modified soft core that marches in support of 90% unemployment.
In France they rioted (whilst sipping Pepsi and guarded by Police with no truncheons) against 10% guys!
So education will continue growing, the soft core with grow softer and FPC will return with another dark prophecy about the country.
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