Zim pleads with SA: Don't hold back aid

Solidarity has a price. Time to come to the table ladies and gentlemen.

So presumably Mr Nelson Chamisa is content that his statement quote you can't crucify Mr Tsvangarai or anybody on the basis of the past unquote can also be applied to Mr Mugabe and all the other Zanu-PF leadership

Yes, and solidarity for Zimbabwe means a government that the people and the international community can trust. This is something that the MDC and SADC should have understood when they manufactured this agreement. Until Zimbabwe demonstrates a departure from its past and a renewed commitment to building a country based on integrity and yes, real solidarity, the whole world and its own people in the diaspora will just watch and wait. It will take more than tokenism to achieve that. You will have to face up to the traversties of the past and make restitution, neither man nor God can honour your new government until you do. This is not a time to sweep the past under the carpet, it will just stay there to haunt you. This takes more than words, it demands real actions and commitment.

Well now, let's see.
Farm invasions are still happening.
MDC can't get its people out of jail where they are languishing under trumped up charges.
The first tranche of aid, R300million Rands worth is largely unaccounted for.
Gono is disputing that anything is going to change with Zimbabwe's monetary policy.
MDC pooh-poohs any kind of controls on aid - "we're not children".

So on the face of it, nothing has changed except that Zimbabwe now has a bloated cabinet - almost twice the size of the largest European economy, Germany.

We would need our collective heads read if we didn't hold back. I want to see that the MDC really does have a say in governing Zim - let them prove themselves by, for example:

- Firing Gideon Gono
- Freeing the activists still being held by the police
- Respecting the SADC farm invasion judgments and stopping the farm invasions and protecting the few productive farms that are left.
- Accepting independent oversight of how the aid is to be spent.

And in any case aid presupposes that South African taxpayers are happy to contribute. And therein lies another source of annoyance. If our esteemed government and in particular our spectacularly ineffective SADC mediator president had applied the pressure that we so easily could have - public statements of disapproval escalating to the odd blackout via Eskom - Zim wouldn't have descended quite so far into the mire and it wouldn't cost so very much to help them out.

But of course, at the end of the day, we'll be happy to help our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe - we must. It's our duty.

But kindly prove first that our money isn't going to go straight into the pockets of "president" Mugabe's henchmen/controllers.

gde prime minister give yourself time. we know you are in this with a positive mind but remember we are dealing with ZANU PF. don't forget what they mean when they say ZANU PF ndeye ropa (ZANU PF is made of people's blood)

It's not a "new administration" and nor does it have "clean hands". It's an administration presided over by the same old obscenity called Mugabe and old leopards do not change their spots. No handouts until Mugabe is gone.

I thought the MDC had a problem with South Africa and SADC....... Now who are they approaching for help?

R300m Not Accounted For? Manuel, Tito & Motlanthe, welcome to the world of Gonomics!! You give us aid, we take-out three quarters for Grace & Sekuru Handiende's shopping holiday to Hong Kong, the 85th birthday bash and of course 4x4s for the super-patriots?

So you South Africans thought it was just opposition politics when we told you that Bob & his cronies cannot be trusted? Now all the aid has been salted away to foreign accounts in Asia and destitute Zimbabweans are still dying from cholera & starvation.

Can you continue to shout ''interference!!'' when the West put conditions and demand accountability for their aid. Surely there has to be a paper/audit trail on the transfer & utilisation of the funds which will pinpoint where the buck stops - those are the people who should cough-up. Do you think South African tax-payers will be happy to hear that their hard-earned Rand went on to line the pockets of the Zim fat-cats? Wake up and smell the coffee gentlemen.
And Mutambara,what have you got to say about all this?