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Rutendo Jiri
CCC national spokesperson, Fadzayi Mahere should be dismissed with the contempt she deserves for claiming that health professionals migrating to the UK are fleeing victimisation back home.
According to The Zimbabwe Mail of July 19, the UK witnessed a 424 percent increase in the number of visas granted to Zimbabweans seeking to live and work abroad over the last two years.
This accounts for 8 000 Zimbabweans granted visas to live and work in the UK.
Mahere expressed worry that, at this rate, the country could be depleted of health professionals who are in demand in the diaspora.
The Zimbabwe Mail observed that there were 73 400 grants of skilled workers visas and 75 963 grants of skilled health workers and care workers visas granted over the last two years.
Characteristic of Mahere, she sought to manipulate these figures to sustain CCC’s position that the country is losing skilled health workers to the UK.
It is worrisome that she states that Zimbabweans going abroad are fleeing victimisation back home!
Through her Twitter handle, she observed that the country had lost about 4 000 local health professionals in the last three years due to brain drain and the prevailing worker conditions in the health sector were enough to “spring any serious Government into action to address worker concerns.”
Such loose utterances by Mahere suggest that Government is complacent and has failed to address the plight of Zimbabweans to the extent they are choosing to migrate abroad.
Yet, this is far from the truth.
What is apparent is that the 4 000 Zimbabweans who migrated to the UK cannot even satisfy that country’s demand of 39 652 nurses and 8 158 doctors who, according to that country’s National Health Services (NHS), died during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, Mahere is oblivious of the fact that these Zimbabweans and many more living and working abroad contribute to the country’s foreign currency earnings through diaspora remittances.
She conveniently forgets that they are not only Zimbabweans going to live and work abroad, but even foreign nationals are coming to live and work in Zimbabwe.
The movement of Zimbabweans to the diaspora is, therefore, not a result of internal victimisation, but a sole search for greener pastures.
Europe currently suffers from workforce shortage across the board from plumbers, builders, drivers, teachers, nurses and engineers among others owing to the Covid-19.
It is not only health workers going abroad, but other non-health professions such as drivers, engineers, plumbers, visitors and tourists.
Mahere turns a blind eye to this reality because she seeks to use the current economic challenges to rally local health workers to revolt against Government.
It is true that Europe offers lucrative salary packages to attract international migrants and I am confident if the Kent University was to offer Mahere a lectureship post, she would not think twice, but dump the struggling CCC.
She too could use her political influence to be easily granted a visa to the UK.
If she could dump the CCC for greener pastures, why should the rest of Zimbabweans be an exception when such life changing opportunities come their way?
Instead, Mahere should be exposed for failing to appreciate how Zimbabwe, a country which has been reeling under illegal sanctions, managed to award its employees 100 percent salary increment on top of the existing US$175 Covid-19 allowance.
She should not forget that Zimbabweans, like any other people, can live and work wherever they deem to enrich themselves, even in the UK, the United States of America (USA), Canada, Australia, South Africa and even Zambia, if they meet that country’s conditions of stay.
What is embarrassing is a whole opposition spokesperson seeking to manipulate people’s individual choices to live and work abroad as fodder for opposition politics by claiming they are fleeing victimisation at home.
People have always travelled across the region. Not so long ago, our fathers and mothers went to live and work in neighbouring South Africa in what was popularly known as Wenera.
One must also be reminded that Zimbabwe boasts of a 90 percent literacy rate and a strong commitment to work hard. Any sensible international employer seeking to expand their business would employ a Zimbabwean on the go!
However, it is not the diaspora alone which offers opportunities for self-enrichment and progress – Africa and Zimbabwe too is host to foreign nationals who are making their fortunes living and working here.
Zimbabwe hosts large populations of white people from the days of colonisation and the CCC has never complained of their presence in our lands; rather, time and again it seeks to collaborate with them to fight against Government.
It must also be emphasised that there is no one being victimised by Government in this country.
Everyone is treated as equal before the law.
If it were so, then the country would have now been deserted and we would not be hosts to foreign nationals who deem our beloved country an Eldorado.
Furthermore, the diaspora which Mahere claims is a sanctuary for Zimbabweans who flee victimisation, is host to many pro-Government and Zanu PF members and supporters.
The diaspora is, therefore, not exclusively for CCC asylum seekers, but for everyone.
It is not only Zimbabweans who are living and working in the UK, but world nationalities, including scores of Chinese, Indians, Nigerians, Ghanaians Congolese, French and Germans.
Surely, all these people and many other nationalities could not be feeling some sort of victimisation from their home countries, but simply living where they choose and are allowed to live in the globe.
After all, we live in a global village and Zimbabweans by virtue of being human beings, deserve the right to live and work in other countries.
Online Reporter