OUTSPOKEN businessman and preacher Shingi Munyeza says Zimbabweans have to stand up and find their own feet in the wake of apparent neglect by their country’s former regional and world allies.
Munyeza, who was appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa into a 26-member presidential advisory council, was speaking at this year’s National People’s Convention in Harare Wednesday.
The convention was called by the local NGO, Citizens’ Manifesto to push for citizen participation in processes meant to find a lasting solution to the country’s deepening crisis.
Munyeza said regional and world countries have given up on any plans to save Zimbabwe which has been staggering from one crisis to another in the past two decades.
“There has to be regional and international support, the region and the world have given up on us…the region including those we call our friends have thrown in the towel,” Munyeza said.
“The international community has thrown in the towel. So basically this train that is cruising in the wrong direction and you assume that somebody is going to rescue us; do not bother rushing to somebody else. We are on our own.”
His statements came a day before images of Mnangagwa addressing an almost empty auditorium at the United Nations General Assembly made rounds on social media platforms.
Southern African leaders have failed to help solve the more than two decade long economic and political crisis faced by Zimbabwe while efforts to reengage the West by the Mnangagwa administration have failed.
The Zimbabwean government has also failed to implement a raft of political and economic reforms that have been set as a condition for re-engagement with America and Europe.
MDC presidential spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda who has lived in the United Kingdom for years also said Zimbabweans in the diaspora felt the country’s image is worsening under the current regime.
“There is no doubt that there is a lot of despair, people think we are not going in any particularly positive direction.
“There is a perverse realisation that this country is getting to a point of no return and an understanding that the attempts to reengage the international community are failing and have failed,” said Sibanda.
Zimbabwe is in dire need for foreign direct investment with salaries being eroded almost every day while inflation has surged to 300 percent, according to IMF, in the absence of any tangible solutions being put in place by government to remedy the crisis.
