IN our NewsDay edition yesterday, we carried two stories titled: Low civil servants wages a time bomb and Let the good time roll, let’s enjoy: Mthuli.
The two stories clearly highlighted the glaring chasm between the country’s lived realities and the artificial world of our leaders.
In the first story we are told that civil servants’ wages are no longer enough to pay for such critical services as medical aid and funeral cover, which in our view is the lowest any government worth its salt can sink.
Yet in the second story, the man in charge of the country’s purse, Finance and Investment Promotion minister, Mthuli Ncube, is busy bragging and telling us to “enjoy the economy as we are in good times”.
Honestly speaking, how can anyone, let alone the civil servants, enjoy anything in this economy when they cannot afford to pay for their healthcare and prepare for their own and relatives’ burial when they die?
It boggles the mind when one tries to understand what our minister is talking about when poverty is festering in his or her own backyard.
Being the man in charge of the country’s finances, we feel he should be telling us the truth about what is happening in our economy.
Saying otherwise is, in our view, living a lie.
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It is a cause for concern why the Finance minister would be so overzealous about painting a glossy picture of the economy when the lived reality is informing us otherwise.
Yes, indeed, the country’s shops are packed with goods, but it is disputable that 80% of the goods are locally made as the Finance minister also claimed in the story. We say this because capacity utilisation in the local industry, especially where Ncube made these statements — Bulawayo, leaves a lot to be desired.
And, in fact, if the shop shelves are full, it is because people cannot afford to buy the goods from their measly earnings. The reality on the ground is that both public and private sector workers are living on the margins in terms of earnings.
What is there to enjoy when people are failing to afford the basic needs of life?
It is high time our leaders climbed down from their ivory towers and walk the streets to understand first-hand that things are really bad out there and no amount of spin-doctoring will make the situation better.
Ncube and company are, in fact, succeeding in making fools of themselves by believing their own preposterous lies and in the process try to hoodwink Zimbabweans and the world that they are doing a splendid job. It is, therefore, our carefully considered view that our economy is in serious trouble and the plight of the civil servant is the clearest evidence of this undeniable reality.
