Thank you ZESA for showing us it’s lights out in government

Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye:

Sunday, 1 December 2024

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Zimbabweans and the world media went agog last Thursday when ZESA conspired to cheekily showcase the national state of affairs by ensuring that Emmerson Mnangagwa and Parliament also suffered the power outages being endured by ordinary Zimbabweans every day.

ZESA may have attributed the black-out to lightning and other natural factors but the fact remains that on an epic day, Parliament was epically plunged into darkness just as Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube wound up the presentation of his pizza and hot dog budget to a bemused nation.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, who in 2023 groped his way into office in similar darkness in a pitch-dark poll condemned by SADC and the world, had to grope his way out of the Parliament building in pitch darkness actuated by the power black out.

But at least Mnangagwa is used to groping and finding his way in the dark.

Both in 2018 and 2023, he sneaked his way into office in the darkness of murky and heavily contested plebiscites.

Last year, FAZ had to nocturnally accost him to a contested Presidency in the darkness of an illegitimate poll condemned by everyone across Africa and the world.

ED had similarly deliberately created a political darkness to land the Vice Presidency by snooking out Joyce Mujuru using murderous gamesmanship in a tenuous run-up in which Mujuru’s husband, Zimbabwe’s first black army Commander Solomon “Rex Nhongo” Mujuru died in suspicious circumstances.

We were therefore not worried about Mnangagwa during the black-out at Mt Hampden’s new parliament building because the man has experience when it comes to finding his way around in darkness, which he sometimes creates himself when it suits his agenda.

Not only did he run the dark-glasses Ministry of National Security at a dark time when many innocent Zimbabweans met their unfortunate demise during Gukurahundi; but remember also that ED sneaked into Mozambique in similar pitch darkness on the eve of the coup in 2017.

Dear reader, my point is Mnangagwa might have experienced his first power outage in Mt Hampden last week but please do not feel any pity that a whole President, even an illegitimate one like him, had to fumble his way out of that building in darkness. The man has vast experience when it comes to warpedly finding his way in darkness.

My point this week is just to say kudos to ZESA for choosing Parliament, the cradle and theatre of the people’s business, as the venue to creatively showcase to the country’s leadership what the ordinary citizens are enduring everyday!

And by blacking out Parliament on that important day in the presence of the country’s President, ZESA was cheekily sending out the message that it’s lights out in government, literally and metaphorically!

It’s light out in the corridors of power and just as he groped in the dark out of Parliament building last week, Mnangagwa has been similarly fumbling in vain to find a lasting solution to the country’s multi-layered challenges, including the now parlous power situation.

Kudos to ZESA for blacking out Parliament in the presence of Mnangagwa, the same man whose spangled six-year old campaign billboards promising to light up the country (kuchenesa nyika nyika nemagetsi) have become a shameful national spectacle in the context of the current power outages.

The burgeoning energy crisis, which has affected households and what is left of our industry, has exposed ED’s incompetent regime whose budget statement did not even address the crisis of this critical economic enabler.

A dead government, such as this one, cannot be a thriving pen of the living for the simple reason that cemeteries by their nature can’t be havens of life. It is only in this government, particularly at the Ministry of Finance, where cemeteries are presumably pens of thriving living things.

And the name Guvamatanga (a grave is a pen) comes to mind. George Guvamatanga is the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance, which presented a dead, dour and uninspiring budget last week.

Through the budget presented last week, this joke of a government has now demanded a seat at the betting house by imposing a betting tax. Hurumende yaakudawo mari yenjuga nefeja-feja.

I agree with ZESA: such pettiness needs to be blacked out, even if we have to attribute the blacking out to lighning!

Shwarma tax. Chicken tax, Hot dog tax. Burger tax. Very soon we could hear that government is imposinga chimodho tax or even a mhandire tax.

As the Finance Minister was almost winding up his schwarma budget statement, ZESA creatively blacked out everything just to expose in graphic terms how our government is lights out; steeped in the unconscious delirium of an aptitude blackout and still to awaken to its cardinal responsibility to steer this nation to progress, growth and development.

Thank you ZESA for using this year’s national budget presentation to alert ED and his clueless government to the load-shedding realities of the moment.

There is certainly no load-shedding at State House and at Precabe farm and a hearty thank you to the national power utility for cheekily reminding Mnangagwa of his false, six-year old election billboard promise to light up our country.

ZESA calls it load-shedding but for the rest of the nation, the real load that ought to be shed off is Mnangagwa himself and Zanu PF.

Thank you ZESA for your witty Mt Hampden message that this regime is lights out—both literally and metaphorically!

Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist by profession. You can interact with him on his Facebook page or via the twitter handle @ luke_tambo.