Morgan was more

13 Jul, 2014 - 05:07 0 Views
Morgan was more Mr Morgan Tsvangirai

The Sunday News

tsvangirai

Morgan Tsvangirai

Lawson Mabhena News Editor
WHEN Mr Morgan Tsvangirai got his first job in the 1970s, money was worth a lot more. A dollar then could buy five beers, the price of a pint today.
This is one of the reasons why the MDC-T leader attacked President Mugabe over the state of the economy recently. According to Mr Tsvangirai, life was better in Rhodesia because beer (and possibly the cost of living) was cheaper.

This is a very common, and yet equally sterile argument by Mr Tsvangirai and like-minded people who do not know that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

“When I started work I was given $450 which was equivalent to the same amount in pounds. A dollar could buy five beers. We recall those days with nostalgia,’’ Mr Tsvangirai said, while addressing party youths in Harare last Wednesday.

What he forgot to mention though, is where one could get five beers for a dollar.

In South Africa a 350ml bottle or pint of beer costs 10-14 Rand, in American liquor stores 500ml of beer costs on average $1,80, while a brew in a Chinese bar will set you back just 55 cents.

In the UK, Spain and Japan, beer costs more — $3 in Britain, and $4 in Japan — than the Zimbabwean average of $1,50 at a bar.

Although beer is relatively cheaper in Zimbabwe, this is not the point.

In the US, a six-pack of beer cost $1,49 in 1978, the price of a single beer today. A dollar worth of 1970 US dollars is now worth $6,02. That is to say that in 1970, $1 had the same purchasing power as $6,02 does today.

So how then does this become a Zimbabwean problem? How does the price of beer prove that the Rhodesians ran a better economy?

The man whose marketing tagline during last year’s elections was “Morgan is more”, is himself like the dollar. With every day that passes, his worth is getting less. He was more in 2002 during the presidential elections when he got 1 258 401 votes, less in 2008 with 1 195 562 and in the 2013 general elections even less with 1 172 349.

It comes as no surprise that Mr Tsvangirai is full of praise for the Rhodesians. After all, it was die-hard Rhodies who helped found his party.

The tragedy is his attempt to brainwash his party’s youth into believing that white minority rule is better than black majority rule. The 62-year-old opposition leader wants to use beer (or its price) to convince the youth that life in Rhodesia was cheap.

Maybe this explains the lavish lifestyle Mr Tsvangirai led for almost five years as Zimbabwe’s prime minister.

It is probably because life is expensive in Zimbabwe that Mr Tsvangirai wants to purchase a $4,5m mansion that was bought and renovated using public funds.

The sprawling mansion was purchased from South African-based Mr Justin Davenport in 2007 for $800 000 and Government initially renovated it for an extra $1,5 million.

The H-shaped mansion in Harare’s Highlands suburb was at the centre of a storm after the former PM and his relative Mr Hebson Makuvise, Zimbabwe’s former ambassador to Germany, allegedly misappropriated funds disbursed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2009 to pay for the purchase of the home.

Life is so expensive in Zimbabwe, Mr Tsvangirai in 2012 was said to be “only” paying a “modest” $1 400 monthly for the upkeep of his love child with a Bulawayo woman, Ms Loreta Nyathi. But despite taking financial care of his son, Ethan, economic hardships made the MDC-T leader refuse to help Ms Nyathi obtain a birth certificate for the baby. In fact, the state of the economy made him fail to meet the tot for over a year.

In 2012 Mr Tsvangirai held what was dubbed the wedding of the year when he tied the knot with Ms Elizabeth Macheka.

Before getting married, Mr Tsvangirai paid another woman Ms Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo’s family $36 000 in lobola. He later reached a $300 000 out-of-court settlement with Ms Karimatsenga Tembo.

But there was more to come. A South African woman, Ms Nosipho Regina Shilubane, also filed a court challenge to stop the wedding, saying she was engaged to the then prime minister, with whom she said she had been romantically involved since 2009.

Wrote The Telegraph’s Peta Thornycroft in November 2012: “. . . it was confirmed that Mr Tsvangirai and Mrs Karimatsenga had settled their dispute with a lump-sum payment, understood to be £150 000.

“The announcement has shocked Mr Tsvangirai’s aides, who say he has no income beyond his monthly salary of about £2 000 a month and no assets since he was an impoverished trade unionist before he entered politics 13 years ago.”

So how could life be better in Rhodesia? Mr Tsvangirai has enjoyed the very high standard of living white people in Rhodesia had, and can empathise with them but cannot fool himself into believing that he could have been a high-spending prime minister under white minority rule.

He should teach the truth to MDC-T youth — it is only under black majority rule that they can have more!

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