A political outfit, the United Democracy Movement (UDM), has urged the government to stop engaging in divisive politics but implement policies that care for its citizens.
UDM contested in the 2018 general elections and is now led by Eddington Mugova, who lamented that the country continued sliding backwards, whose cause was bad governance, corruption, politicking and non respect of the rule of law.
“The situation that Zimbabwe is in right now is a product of years of continued operation of the above listed vices. Without corrections to the above, the future of our people will surely be in tatters.
“Zanu PF has been the ruling party forming the government since 1980 and the sorry state we find ourselves in is a result of their poor governance and as UDM we are asking the government of this day to put people first and address the socio-economic decay in the country,” said the party in a statement.
UDM indicated it was pro-citizen and urged the government to have a human face and stop dabbling in polarised politics so Zimbabwe could move forward.
“Polarised politics should be stopped with immediate effectThere should be political engagement with all political players and the selection of who to engage with should be dismissed.
“It is very clear that MDC Alliance is a big political player and their absence from any talks of engagement will have a very big effect with any product of engagement that comes out. It is therefore important that they should be one of the many political players that should take part in political engagements,” the party said.
The political outfit added that the country had reversed the gains made during the Government of National Unity between 2009 to 2013, which was retrogressive.
Mugova said citizens expected prices of goods and commodities to be fair and reasonable especially under the lockdown period but the opposite was in effect.
“The price madness currently taking place clearly shows the government has no solutions at hand to stop the unjust increases of goods and commodities. At one point, the government ordered suppliers and industry to go back the pricing of pre COVID-19 era of March 21, 2020 and all this fell on deaf ears.
“Its testament to the saying that the market determines the economy not Zanu PF or any politics,” he said, questioning how prices were now quoted in USD yet salaries continue to be paid in the local ZimDollar currency.
UDM also expressed concern that the government had even taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to engage in illicit deals, yet had no safety nets for its citizens.
“Whilst we should applaud the government of quickly putting the country on lockdown to fight the pandemic, we are deeply saddened by the lack of plan to take care of citizens under lockdown. Since the lockdown started citizens are starving and this has led to a number of citizens breaking COVID-19 regulation in search of food.
“As UDM we have also noted that Zanu PF as a party have hijacked some of the donations meant for the majority to fatten their own pockets. We urge our government to feed the citizens whilst still on lockdown,” the party noted.
The party also said political capture of the justice system and state apparatus to prey on opponents was wrong and scoffed at the government’s lack of plan regarding education.
“Today schools are closed due to COVID-19 and the government lacks a plan of how learning should proceed in the country. It has become a norm that the government is always caught unaware and without a plan,” UDM claimed.
