According to prominent Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, Zimbabwe’s poverty is not inherent; rather, it stems from inadequate governance. This perspective emerged after President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa declared a state of disaster in response to the drought that severely impacted the 2023/24 summer cropping season on Wednesday, April 03.
Zimbabwe becomes the third African country to declare the current drought a national disaster, following Zambia and Malawi.
On his social media platforms, the prominent government critic Hopewell Chin’ono pointed out the irony of President Mnangagwa allocating trucks to traditional chiefs and ZANU PF social media propagandists while the nation grapples with a severe cereal deficit. He wrote:
The President of Zimbabwe has declared a state of national disaster, a euphemism in this case for saying there isn’t enough food to feed the nation.
This ironically comes after the president distributed 100 trucks to traditional chiefs, and has started distributing cars to ZANU PF social media propagandists who helped in his election campaign.
A surrogate close to the president, convicted criminal, Wicknell Chivhayo, has also been distributing high-end cars to greedy musicians who support the ruling party, ZANU PF.
It is indeed strange that after this obscene public display of misplaced extravagance, the president is now asking ordinary citizens both at home and abroad to donate money towards something caused by his government’s lack of planning, yet he has been splurging on cars.
Chinon’o boldly exposed the ZANU PF-led government’s deception, revealing that their claim of sufficient grain reserves in the country was far removed from reality. He said:
The severe impact of the ongoing drought would have been mitigated by maize reserves, but the government lied that it had enough reserves when it didn’t, only to be exposed that it was buying maize weekly from South Africa by that country’s Head of International Diplomacy on Twitter.
Mnangagwa stated that over 2.7 million Zimbabweans need food aid. He added that Zimbabwe will face a grain deficit of 680,000 tonnes.
Zimbabwe’s agricultural industry collapsed when ZANUPF removed land tenure and embarked on its never-ending removal of commercial farmers, both black and white, from farms and handed them over to ZANU PF cronies who couldn’t farm.
Chin’ono has emphatically stated that Zimbabwe currently grapples with the world’s highest inflation rate.
Furthermore, the local currency has been rendered virtually worthless due to corruption within the central bank and the glaring incompetence attributed to ZANUPF’s legendary inability to govern, said Chin’ono, adding, “Zimbabwe is not poor, it is only poorly governed!”
