Dimaf sinking in politics of personal interests

The untold story about the $40 million fund is that it is sinking in the politics of personal interests. Within the MDC-T ranks is a strong thinking that if the Dimaf project is a success then credit will go to Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube and because the issue of revival of companies is of serious importance to the people of this region that credit can translate into a political vote for the Ncube-led MDC.
It is for that reason that the MDC-T, using its incompetent MPs in Bulawayo is using its leverage to block the Ministry of Finance from releasing the funds to the companies in Bulawayo because they are serving self-interest and not the interests of the region. It is sad that MDC-T with the majority of MPs in the city continues to work against the interests of the same people that gave them power to lead because they are serving personal and not the interests of the people.

What they seem to be concentrating on is strengthening their grip on constituencies by ensuring that no one who is not from their party brings major developmental projects as this will expose their incompetence.
But if you are a leader in an area, occupying an important position like that of MP, why should you be at the forefront of sabotaging major projects meant to transform the lives of the very people that you lead? It is really sad that MDC-T MPs in Bulawayo will wear brave faces when they interact with the people of

Bulawayo who elected them to power when they are fully aware that they are working against projects that can make people’s lives change for the better.
Inside information will soon come out to expose MDC-T MPs in Bulawayo as super-hypocrites that have been pushing the hardest to ensure that Dimaf is sabotaged because they fear for their constituencies. But in all honesty and fairness to the people that you lead can you work to sabotage like this important and progressive initiative just because you fear your rivals will gain political mileage?

What this region wants is leadership that is empathetic, that puts aside personal interests and accepts the diversity of our abilities as cornerstones to transformation of the lives of our people. This is the reason why it is important for all the leaders of the region to support initiatives that will change our lives and not sabotage them because of efforts to serve self-interest. What is desired is to support initiatives that will bring revival of our industries and other strategic areas of our livelihoods.

There is need for creation of jobs so that our young people can earn incomes for survival. The strategy behind Dimaf was to ensure that we achieve all this and the push for the fund to benefit the region first was not a mechanism to push for votes by Prof Ncube. It is genuine desire to ensure that the region benefits form the inclusive government given the many years of marginalisation.

It was not a political gimmick but just use of political leverage because of his position in government to promote development in the region. Anyone who fails to realise that to fight against the coming of capital projects and major development to the region is treacherous surely does not deserve a leadership position in the region.

To demonstrate the extent of sabotage by MDC-T, Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti has in the last six months continuously misled the Ministry of Industry and Commerce that they had deposited the government’s portion which is $20 million into the CABS account for disbursement. It has turned out that they have not done so and it seems they wanted to mislead the Minister of Industry and Commerce to make commitments and pronouncements on the fund based on a lie so that they destroy his credibility.

Those who attended the launch of the fund late last year will remember that Minister Biti who came to launch the fund in the absence of Prof Ncube gave a narration of the whole fund and pretended that Prof Ncube did not exist in the scheme of things. It only took the courage of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister, Sithembiso Nyoni who said it would be unfair to talk about the fund without recognising the important lead role taken by Prof Ncube in ensuring that the fund becomes reality.

From that very moment one could tell that there was a sinister agenda from the MDC-T to ensure that the work done by Prof Ncube is distanced from the fund. Unfortunately for them, that did not work because the public knew well clearly that the driving force behind the fund was Prof Ncube. But in a typical MDC-T modus operandi of burning the whole house to kill a rat, they have seen it as a best strategy to sink Prof Ncube by ensuring that the fund does not become a reality. They would rather sink Prof Ncube by sinking the fund because of their political fear.

This is why Biti has been misleading him so that he appears to be the dishonest one in the eyes of the public. If the MDC-T is grateful to the people of Matabeleland for voting them into power why are they sinking such a progressive initiative? This clearly shows that the MDC-T people have no interest whatsoever in seeing the region becoming the industrial giant that it was.

They know that if the region is allowed to reconstruct itself into the industrial giant that it should be, it will begin to make non-partisan decisions on issues of governance including making choices of MPs without economic coercion like is the case now.
The people of this region who are inevitably seriously affected by the effects of de-industrialisation should know that it is the MDC-T in Matabeleland which is working day in, day out using their Minister Biti to block Dimaf because of political fear and continuation of serving of self-interest.

The people of this region in their linguistic, racial and tribal diversity consisting of the Ndebele, Shona, Sotho, Venda, Xhosa, Kalanga, Nambya, Dombe, English and Nyanja who are all affected by sabotage of development in the region should know that MDC-T because of a desire to serve self-interest is working against operationalisation of Dimaf.

It is precisely for this reason that the people of the region in their linguistic, racial and tribal diversity should know that the only solution to this and other strategies of sidelining the region require nothing short of a political solution. It is necessary to resort to use of a political solution because the MDC-T is using its political majority to sink the region and yet that political majority is derived from the votes that the people of the region gave them.

The people of the region in their tribal, racial and linguistic diversity gave the MDC-T a mandate to lead the region in the hope that they will spearhead development. So the solution in simple terms is to vote them out in the next election and replace them with people who have a clear interest and knowledge of how to move the region forward.