Zimbabwe war veterans ditch Mugabe

We need not remind the Party President and First Secretary that respect for those in leadership should not be equated to fear. We do not subscribe to the idea of unbridled exercise of power without consultation, where threats of genocidal magnitude are made against us. He should be reminded that he remains the major beneficiary of the National War effort at every stage including the Unity Accord. He has used the privilege of leadership to build a patronage system around him, which has turned into a personality cult.  It therefore shocks us to the core that, gauging from his recent statements, he now wishes to turn the present young generation against us for his own continued personal aggrandizement.

The Land Reform Programme, which was a historical culmination of the valiant liberation struggle, made more land available to the State. The President and his hangers-on, to our utter dismay, now uses that land as reward for his foot soldiers, who have become his personal mercenaries. These mercenaries, strangely, are getting urban land as reward for destroying the War Veterans' legacy and the Party and, with it, the national heritage. We stand firm and resolute in the defence of that legacy. The tragic consequences for the hare-brain decisions are there for the nation to see.

His leadership has presided over unbridled corruption and down­ right mismanagement of the economy, leading to national economic ruin for which the effects are now felt throughout the land.

The lack of leadership manifests itself in the following examples: –

The multiple ZESA scandals;

Netone;

ZINARA;

ZISCO;

NRZ;

ZUPCO;

Hwange Colliery;

Chiadzwa diamond fields;

Public management and financial scandals replete in numerous Comptroller and Auditor-General’s Reports;

Proliferation of land barons through systematic land-grabbing by those in positions of authority;

Youth fund;

Housing fund;

Parceling out urban land on partisan grounds, thereby rendering urban authorities irrelevant;

Distribution of national assets at Party rallies thereby depriving deserving development priorities;

Commandeering and frog-marching parastatals' financial resources to fund party political functions to the detriment of the public purse and public welfare.

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