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Stephen Mpofu
Spectators packed on terraces of the massive stadium — and many others far away — wait with bated breath or with their fingers crossed for the arrival of the team to execute a mammoth task awaiting them.

But lo and behold! As soon as the team is fielded it is showered from the terraces and elsewhere with missiles of all types imaginable and including dung before play begins in earnest.

That, in a nutshell is the sad scenario which heralded the new cabinet team in the Government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa even before the ministers sat down in their new offices to begin the mammoth task of putting Zimbabwe’s tattered economy back on even keel and set the nation on the road toward political maturation.

Arm-chair critics, among them Zimbabweans self-rusticated in the global diaspora with nasty memories of things and people back home in their native country, went to town, as it were, pontificating to the coach, Cde Mnangagwa — a former senior assistant coach himself — about which player he should have included, or left out of the team.

You (yes, you) heard such preposterous suggestions to the effect that some strikers were squint-eyed and so could not direct shots straight into goal, and that some fullbacks had rickets so that all the opponents or enemy players could do was simply shoot the ball straight between the legs and into goal while the rest of the players were in leg irons which seriously reduced their pace.

These and other metaphors used in describing the competences of the new ministerial team will not have failed to demoralise people tasked to turn around the economy while at the same time eradicating corruption which prompted the military to intervene in the political affairs of this country to save it from going completely to the dogs, as the saying goes.

Opposition political parties clamouring for inclusion in the new cabinet for them to be in good stead in campaigning against Zanu-PF for the harmonised elections next year, were among the most vociferous, sour-grapes critics of the new cabinet and its leader.

But of course, to reprove in a more civilised manner runs with approval and praise as motivational incentives. Unfortunately, however, the manner in which the new ministers were viciously categorised does not amount to a filip in their performance, but instead bashes their spirits.

Thus, it is incumbent upon Zimbabweans to give the new team a break as well as the support they badly need to demonstrate the stuff of which they are made in order to turn around our economy.

Corruption has been singled out as THE number one enemy which must be eradicated — and eradicated yesterday because the scam seriously affects the growth of any economy in the world and that is why that scourge has also become a priority task for Uganda to stamp out by all means possible.

In this country, those inverted patriots who blew out millions to be kept in secret foreign bank accounts and escaped the scrutiny of the Panama papers which exposed leaders from some countries including Britain who kept secret bank accounts in Panama, must be made to have that money repatriated to inject new blood into our ailing economy.

As a matter of fact, Zimbabweans expect that those corrupt people who surrounded the former president, resulting in his ouster following the army’s intervention in the operation Restore Legacy, should be dealt with and be seen to be truly dealt with.

If they fled the country, they must be extradited to face the music, but if they are treated like sacred cows a message will be sent out to potential criminal elements to the effect that one can get away with monetary murder in this country and they will also be encouraged to do just that.

Then there is the foreign component of those who climbed on the bandwagon of support for Zimbabwe in various ways when celebrating the new change of government initiated by the army without bloodshed.

Now, however, one hears some discordant voices on the way forward in their support of the country under the new government.

A distinct example is the government of the United States of America whose ambassador in Harare told the Voice of America radio through its Zimbabwean correspondent that any lifting of economic sanctions imposed on this country by his government as a reprisal for our land reform programme would be conditional on “positive action being taken” by the Zimbabwean government.

But is the clause positive action a metaphorical reference which needs elaboration for the people of this country to know and understand? Or is the meaning conveyed by that clause a literal one?

If the ambassador meant the latter, which suggests the reversal of land reform and against which America and Britain imposed their illegal embargo with their kith and keen in Europe also running with the sanctions agenda, then tough luck because this country is not a province of America and will not countenance the death of the agrarian revolution that gives a fresh new lease of life to millions of otherwise poor rural folk.

If on the other hand positive action refers to compensation being paid to white farmers for any land taken away from them for redistribution to the blacks who needed that asset the most, then that matter should be negotiated for an amicable solution to be found so that cordial relations between America and this country are restored.

The good news for Zimbabwe is that positive new voices of support for the government have started to ring out from the US itself, and our people should be buoyed by that development to join ranks and work as an indefatigable team to usher in a prosperous new Zimbabwe, what with the budget statement presented to Parliament on Wednesday and which should be viewed as a window to the world about Cde Mnangagwa’s repositioning of this country in the global village and on the still-warm ashes of the Mugabe administration.

Back home, now is the time to bury political differences and work together like a span of oxen and donkeys ploughing a field without leaving behind glaring banks for weeds to grow and choke the food crop.

Our people should realise that first and foremost, this country’s destiny is in our own hands and that squabbling and infighting politically instead of working together in spite of political or ethnic diversities, is an act of self-annihilation, socially, politically and economically and with no viable inheritance for this and other generations to come.