Time to declare an emergency

By The Standard | Sep. 27, 2015

Dear President Mugabe I HOPE I find you well. I am in that glad-to-be-alive mode.

Buhlebenkosi Tshabangu-Moyo

I am writing this open letter because I suspect sending it through the official channels would take forever. I am a Zimbabwean citizen, born and bred in Bulawayo in 1975. So, this is a citizen writing to a leader.

I do not like the way I feel about my country sometimes. I am proud to be Zimbabwean most of the time. But I am extremely uncomfortable with that. I think you can change that because you are the President. You are the man in charge of this teapot-shaped country.

You see, sometimes I have to defend my country when people ridicule it because many of us are all over the world trying to live a decent life.

Or because we have constant power cuts and we are always complaining. That is why I have decided to engage you, albeit through an open letter.

In 2008, we endured South African border officials asking: Why are you coming to our country? Why don’t you go and remove Mugabe, or there is too many of you coming into our country, what do you want?

All we wanted was to buy sugar, salt, mealie meal, bread and other basic commodities because our shops were empty. A Zimbabwean passport was like a curse in those days.

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I am not sure how much of our daily struggles you know about: no electricity for hours on end, no water and sometimes no food for some families.

Everyone’s reality is different from everyone else’s reality of course, but there are people who struggle to have just one meal per day. Some children have dropped out of school because their parents or grandparents simply cannot afford the fees.

These are the results of an ailing economy like ours. Families have been torn apart when fathers and/or mothers leave the country to find work. You have said it yourself before that, some do menial jobs. If they had a choice, they would still be here, I am sure.

I am writing to you because I am hoping you will find it in your heart to address these issues as the leader of the nation; as the man in charge. In the past two weeks, Zesa’s load-shedding has gone beyond crisis levels: sometimes we have no power for more than 24 hours. Some people have generators, not all of us can afford them.

So my plea is for you to declare power a national crisis or national emergency. Recently, we were told that Hwange Power Station needs refurbishment and the water levels at Kariba Dam are too low. We have had droughts in the past, but we never heard of dam levels being too low.

Your Excellency, there is a problem of perception affecting government officials. Some of us take whatever they say with a very big pinch of salt due to what we have witnessed. For example, before 2007 Zesa and government officials assured us that the impending power shortages in the Sadc region would not affect the country; we would have enough power. But look where we are now! We no longer trust officials’ explanations of the crisis.

Anyway, back to my plea. Maybe if you declare power a national crisis or emergency, the government might raise funding for the short and long-term solutions. At the moment, I feel as if government is not giving this problem the attention it deserves.

I do not think there is any way the country can resuscitate the economy or revive industry unless we address the power crisis. I believe power is like that piece of a jigsaw puzzle that is missing, without which the puzzle is incomplete; nothing will fall into place. If we do not have it, we will continue to try this and that, but none of it will work.

I am sure being a parent yourself, you can understand that. I am a patriotic Zimbabwean woman who wants to see our country flourish.

I am really looking forward to a favourable response. I wish you a pleasant day.

Yours sincerely,

Buhlebenkosi Tshabangu-Moyo