Mnangagwa’s government recently announced that it will be
paying gratuities and pensions to a new batch of 160 000 war veterans,
ex-political prisoners and war collaborators.
The move is seen as a Zanu PF election strategy since war
veterans, ex-political prisoners and war collaborators are part of the ruling
party’s structures.
It has also drawn parallels to the 1997 move by the late
Robert Mugabe’s regime to pay hefty gratuities and pensions to 50 000 war
veterans, leading to the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar.
Former Zanu PF politburo member and liberation war stalwart
Rugare Gumbo said the number of former fighters the government says it wants to
compensate did not make sense.
“The figure published by the government is disputable,” Gumbo told The Standard. “I don’t know the reason why the authorities are inflating the figures.”
Liberation Veterans Pressure Group chairman Amos Sigauke
also said the figures were inflated.
“We should now be less than 34 000 because the ex-combatants are dying,” Sigauke said. “They want to rip off deserving war veterans and give the money to Zanu PF youths ahead of 2023.”
In 1989, there were 30 000 war veterans across the country
and the number has kept on increasing with analysts saying the government was
creating ghost ex-combatants.
Pardon Taodzera, a political analyst, said the government
had a history of putting ghost workers on its payroll as payment for
campaigning for the ruling party.
“Remember, during the time of the unity government a lot of
ghost workers were unearthed, who later turned out to be Zanu PF youths,”
Tadzorea said.
“Now the government wants to smuggle its youths disguised
as war veterans.”
Harare-based economist Prosper Chitambara said the economy
will pay a huge price as billions were being splashed to win votes.
“This explains why there could be a huge increase in broad
money supply within the economy and obviously that increase in money supply has
also stocked up inflationary pressures,” Chitambara said.
“So the financing of these projects has caused a bit of
instability.”
Mnangagwa’s government has been spending big on projects,
especially targeted at elusive urban voters such as drilling of boreholes and
rehabilitation of roads, which economists say could boomerang.
In March, Zanu PF revealed plans to drill boreholes in all
cities and towns, in what critics said was a vote buying gimmick.
Yesterday, Mnangagwa commissioned one such borehole in
Harare’s Glen view and the trucks carrying the rigs were emblazoned with his
image.
For road works, the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority has
so far poured just over $9.5 billion under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation
Programme with $17 billion set aside for 2022.
Last month, Mnangagwa pampered chiefs in Binga with fishing
rigs, fulfilling a promise made ahead of the March 26 by-elections.
Zanu PF went all out to win Binga North, but lost the seat
to the Citizens Coalition for Change.
Binga will also get a vocational training centre and a new
border post, boreholes, nursing school at Binga Hospital and the refurbishment
and operationalisation of the hospital mortuary ahead of the 2023 elections.
Traditional leaders across the country have been promised
medical aid, fuel coupones, data bundles, and free car services including payment in foreign
currency that civil servants are clamouring for as the local currency tanks.
Methuseli Moyo, a political analyst and university
lecturer, said the fact that most of the projects were being fast-tracked ahead
of the elections betrayed the government’s intentions.
“If the government really wanted to do projects, the money
has always been there but the issue was that the money was being diverted for
other things…and now they are trying to do so much ahead of elections,” Moyo
said.
“So in a way it can boomerang, it may have a backlash.”
Zanu PF Harare provincial chairperson Godwills Masimirembwa
in March unwittingly disclosed at a party rally in Glen Norah B that war
collaborators were being vetted to vote for the ruling party.
International Monetary Fund representative for Zimbabwe
Carlos Cacere told our sister publication, the Zimbabwe Independent, that the
pledge to pay the gratuities and pensions was a cause for concern.
“It is not that compensation is good or bad but for us the
concern at the end of the day is the generation of public debt and this comes
in addition to an already unsustainable
debt,” Cacere said.
“Our concern is more from that area of debt and not from a
political angle and not whether lower income people who have lost money in the
past should be paid.” Standard
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