byschedule
changes.

Amid all these glaring problems,
the government treads lightly on theeffects of its shortcomings. The
shortages of basic foodstuffs that thegovernment blames on "unscrupulous
manufacturers who want to exploit themasses" quickly comes to
mind.

As the disruptions on commercial
farms took place, at no point did thegovernment ever pose to think that it
had pronounced the death sentence onall food-processing companies by
disrupting the source of raw materials.

If
ever there was an award for skewed decisions, the one made by thegovernment,
that of leapfrogging Zambia to fight in the Democratic Republicof Congo
(DRC), would lift the
trophy.

Despite being unbudgeted for, as
was the case with the $50 000 paid toeach war veteran in 1997, heavy
financial, material and human resourceswere, in the style of the biblical
sower, indiscriminately scattered in theDRC war. Up to now, the balance
sheet, if ever it was done, hasnot yet beenmade
public.

With a Cabinet as large as an
orchestra, Mugabe has failed to tightenthe nuts and bolts of the government,
resulting in the wrecking of
thecountry.

The Professor, whose
tongue has never known rest ever since he washand-picked in 2000, has caused
more burns and blisters than those he wantedto soothe - his propaganda is
too cheap to hoodwink even the nutty of
thenuttiest.

He has made a shoddy job
of covering the cracks and whitewashing thepatches of the crumbling
regime.

When he gloated over the foreign
currency that was to be generatedfrom the Miss Malaika contest, the solar
eclipse and the hosting of somecricket matches, the Professor spoke as if
these one-off events were alasting supply source of foreign currency, yet
they were not. The eventscame and went, but foreign currency shortages
continue in their intensity tohaunt the
nation.

With the nationwide teachers'
strike underway, coming