Politics, economic hardships driving people out

THE year 2021 has started on a very sad note with Zimbabwe going for strict COVID19-induced lockdown restrictions, deliberately ignoring and not putting into consideration the 80% informally employed people.

The government cannot afford even to give grants to the suffering majority.

Those working in South Africa were caught in-between and were stranded at the South Africa border where the immigration officers were screening them and those found without proper documentation turned away and those who met the requirements had to be retested for COVID-19. Some had to resort to border jumping.

Zimbabweans are facing the darkest hour. They are paying the price for not standing up to the regime.

Unfortunately, African Union and the Southern African Development Community leaders have been rubber stamping this suffering and brutality for years in the spirit of promoting camaraderieship.

People are running away from poverty and hunger which is creeping right at their doorsteps.

The deepening economic, political and leadership crisis is beyond imagination.

In the wake of humanitarian and political crisis, COVID-19 seems second to ravage the people’s lives and causing economic hardships to Zimbabweans.

The President Emmerson Mnanangagwa-led administration is slowly losing control of leadership. It is now forcing citizens to leave the country by failing to fix the dead economy which has been thrown into a deep end.

The magnitude of Zimbabwean challenges and what we are experiencing at the border are a manifestation of long-standing governance crisis.

It is unfortunate that someone forgot to wake the party from the slumber, hence the lackadaisical approach to issues of development. We have a serious crisis.

The problem in Zimbabwe is that of a compromised and incompetent government led by a clueless and reactionary team, spending much of its time and resources on winning elections than researching on important issues affecting the country.

Leonard Koni