MOSES MATENGA
Bishops under the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference have challenged politicians aspiring for higher offices to act in addressing the crippling economic crisis that has led to extreme poverty, unemployment and desperation across the country instead of turning polls into “just a power game.”
In their Lenten Pastoral Letter for 2023 titled ‘Breaking the Unjust Fetters’ the Bishops added the forthcoming elections should not be accompanied by violent campaigns saying the nation will be doomed if politicians only focus on nothing but power games.
“If important elections such as these become nothing but a power game, seeking to attain or retain power and nothing else to offer beyond this, then as a nation, we are lost and we are doomed,” the Bishops said.
“Looking at where we are, we see that our people are witnesses and worse, victims of abject poverty and destitution.”
“We live with these and there doesn’t seem to be an exodus, a way out of this desperation, where people are without work, and those with work are paid never enough to feed themselves and look after their families. We see a growing population on the streets living on begging. We see a very high percentage of young people of school going age not going to school and a good number of them now being employed, by untouchable drug lords, to sell drugs and killing themselves and many others in the process.”
The Bishops added: “We go to this important General Election to elect a leader that has a clear plan about how to put families first by creating good employment so as to lower the increased number of our poor people living in desperate situations of outright deprivation. This election must bring to the highest office a leader who cares about the health of the excluded poor both young and old.”
The Bishops bemoaned high levels of corruption in the country and lack of transparency in key government structures as exposed by the Auditor General Mildred Chiri.
“She writes that some ministries have not made their documents available for audit despite the fact that this is a requirement. Where there is no transparency and no accountability, we can conclude that there is corruption at a large scale,” the Bishops said.
“The chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission admitted in 2019 that the commission could do very little because the courts were corrupt.”
“This lent must give us time to think about the sort of leadership we want. Can we choose from the candidates who will present themselves, people who will lead our country on the path of economic prosperity, justice and freedom for which our brothers and sisters gave their lives in the war of liberation?”
The letter was signed by Bishop Paul Horan, O. Carm. Bishop of Mutare, ZCBC President, Bishop Raymond Mupandasekwa, C.Ss.R. Bishop of Chinhoyi, Vice President, Bishop Rudolph Nyandoro, Bishop of Gweru and Administrator of Gokwe Diocese, ZCBC Secretary, Archbishop Robert C. Ndlovu, Archbishop of Harare and Administrator of Masvingo Diocese among others.
