By Anna Mukome.......

Apparently, there is big money in schools. So, as with everything that has big money in Zimbabwe, Zanu PF wants its fingers in it. But whatever they lay their hands on, they destroy, so farms have stopped producing; the industries are gone and now attention is on the banks and private schools.

Zimbabweans should rally behind the MDC in saying no to this madness, especially to the schools and the banks because public education has already been ruined by insufficient funding, leaving parents to fork out unbelievable amounts on private education for their children.

These parents are scrounging because they realize that the most important gift they can give to their children is education, so that if all else fails in Zimbabwe, at least they will be able to find their way anywhere in the world, as a lot of other Zimbabweans are already doing because of their education.

Research has shown that parents are paying between US dollars 50 and 150 per month for pre-schools in the cities and anything from $700 to $2 000 per term for secondary school while parting with $4 000 to $5 000 for colleges such as Peterhouse and Watershed. Zimbabwe's indigenisation elite is looking at this and saying there is money to be enjoyed.

But, as some of them have already demonstrated in their own companies, they forget that building of private schools in some cases is still being paid for, teachers have to be paid and paid well to retain the cream of the teachers, their pensions and taxes have to be contributed, supplies for the schools have to be sourced and paid for and the health as well as nutrition of the pupils has to be assured to retain the absolute confidence of the parents who have to pay these monies.

On education, just like on banking, we now have to draw a line because if they try to take them over and run them like village grinding mills, we will all end up in a society which we never imagined, just as we almost did in 2007 and 2008, only worse this time.

Zanu PF has invaded and taken over farms that were producing our food, employing people and producing raw materials for our food processing industries. Now, the people are starving because there is no food; the farm workers are unemployed and even homeless and dying in droves but Zanu (PF) does not care.

In the urban areas, the industries have closed because of lack of inputs and lack of demand. Nobody has the money to buy their products and the shops are full of South African goods and cheap Chinese imports which we could manufacture better ourselves.

We should not allow Zanu PF to destroy education just as they should lay off the banks, where the savings and pensions of the nation are managed, where the monthly payments of workers are processed and operational funds of companies are all being safely kept.

Kasukuwere himself took over United Touring Company and ran it to the ground, unable to distinguish between revenue and profit. Lobels is now a gonna. Only recently, the Reserve Bank Governor accused Kasukuwere and the chairman of the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board, David Chapfika of being failed bankers.

He repeated his position and that of the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, that there is no law that provides for arbitrariness on the part of anyone or expropriation of banking assets in Zimbabwe.

He should have added, “or expropriation of any assets of any company” which is what Zanu PF and its cronies have been doing under the guise of indigenisation.

The governor should cut short his trip wherever he is and come back to sort out this mess once and for all because it is clear the policy statements are not enough to stop Zanu PF doing what it wants to do.

And in the absence of President Mugabe, the acting President should also step up to the plate and bring this errant Minister who is getting carried away to order before he destroys our economy.

Kasukuwere himself should be fired for putting politics ahead of his sworn ministerial job without any due regard for the well-being of all Zimbabweans as any self-respecting Minister of the government should do.

If the Reserve Bank Governor who is the custodian of the country’s monetary policy says the gazetted laws are devoid of rationality and contrary to existing laws in the country such as the Banking Act and the RBZ Act, who is the Minister of Indigenisation to argue?

The fact that both the Minister of Indigenisation and his chairman of the Indigenisation Board, are associated with failed banks, Unibank (Chapfika) and Genesis (Kasukuwere) speaks volumes about the path that their misguided policies are taking us let alone the legality of them having anything to do with banking.

As Gideon Gono put it: “Anyone who was near a failed bank is not a fit and proper person to deal with banking matters or to ever own, run or talk about the ownership of a bank again until cleared by the central bank.”

This is a universal practice, so Kasukuwere and Chapfika’s Zimbabwe must be outside this universe!

Kasukuwere’s universe is made up only of flashing dollar signs, which explains why he and his supporters are now ignoring the advice of the man whom they once elevated to a God, giving him the powers to do anything he wanted with the national purse.

Now, he is offering them an indigenisation model that keeps Zimbabwe’s economy growing – and therefore, creating jobs and incomes for the rest of us – while also empowering the traditionally disadvantaged, but they will not hear of it. This is because under their model it does not matter what happens to the economy or to the rest of us; as long as they would have pocketed their shares, no matter that the companies’ values will be diminished and eventually forced to close, they would have got their shares for nothing, squandered any income from them and moved on.

It is about time they were stopped, if it means civil disobedience on the part of companies, if it means taking them to court; if it means introducing emergency measures in Parliament to stop them, it now has to be done.