Coffee with assumptions
If you were having coffee with me I would welcome you to my tangle of words and ask you to feel at home, put your feet up… you may or may not have noticed but have had some work done around this place, feel free to browse around ☕
While you are looking around, I would ask that if you happen to see blood on my hands what would you think had happened; that I hurt myself or I had hurt someone… what if I had gotten rid of a strange cat the colour of midnight that had been stalking me..
Oh perish the thought, I am as benign as fire, light and warmth giver, but if you don’t pay attention, I might burn your house down🔥 … but I would never hurt a fly, I pick my teeth with olive branches.
It wasn’t blood on my hands, it was ketchup, I ripped open a sachet of tomato sauce and spilt all over.
I no longer remember were I came across the expression “To assume makes an ass of u and me”, but ever since then, I try (and mostly fail) to not make assumptions about the world around me…
A former wrestler graces the Oscars with nothing on but rippling abs and a carefully positioned envelope of nominees for best costume and I cant help wonder what goes on behind the scenes of Tinsletown…. Sometimes we envy the Red Carpeters assuming they have lives that glitter like flashes from a camera and the reality could be darker…
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that an entrepreneur from Zimbabwe has been stealing the headlines for gifting cars to artists, creatives and bloggers as appreciation for their hard work particularly in support of the ruling party.. Word on the street, is that its to recruit them in campaigning for the next round of elections.. We are barely 6 months past the last election drama and already there’s talks of securing victory for the next elections.. meanwhile, the unstructured opposition parties seem to bickering while still lacing up their shoes.
If someone offered you a free car would you accept it?
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the philanderer philanthropist gifting people vehicles acquired an expensive electric vehicle which is ironic when you consider that he is the businessman who once got a substantial government tender to build a solar powerplant which to date remains mysteriously incomplete. The worst thing is that without so much as a warning we are back to the era of unscheduled 16 hour loadshedding schedules…
Apparently, cause of the low rains and resultant receding water levels at Kariba Dam, the electricity generation at Kariba Hydroelectric PowerStation has been reduced from 600mw to 214mw. One would assume that it should be simple enough for the power utility to draft a detailed schedule of the power distribution so we can plan for the day, but they simply update us with power generation statistics which seem inaccurate at best given the power blackouts.
If you are coffee with me, I would tell you that people are up in arms over the punitive tax regime by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. The economy of Zimbabwe is largely informal which means people evade taxes and tend to not fully register their operations. The presumptive taxes are pegged at an inflated rate to try and force businesses to regularise operations and file their taxes – otherwise the tax authority will assume you are making a pile of money and tax you accordingly….
POTRAZ revealed that the government earn 25% of every dollar generated by telecommunications companies (15% VAT plus 5% excise duty plus 5% health levy). This might be why they are reluctant to license Starlink, losing out on a the cash cow they can milk dry. Craziest thing is state owned enterprises have been found to be using Starlink and possibly fired their CEO over that and there is a receipt circulating on social media showing that the national broadcaster paid a highly inflated price for Starlink Services from a third party…
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that I find it interesting to see the charge that was given to two companies that were found to be using Starlink which is currently illegal to use in Zimbabwe even though there isn’t a specific legal instrument that caters for the scenario…
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that The US government removed sanctions on Zimbabwe by terminating the Executive Order 13288 of 2003…. And then put them back on again under The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2016 which empowers the President of the United States to take specific actions against foreign individuals or entities engaged in human rights violations or corruption. Under this act, 3 entities and 11 individuals including the president of Zimbabwe and his wife have been placed under targeted sanctions.
US Government says that the sanctions “are intended to make clear what has always been true: our sanctions are not intended to target the people of Zimbabwe.” Lets see if life will change in any significant way as Zimbabwe opened up to the outside world… could that be why there is talks of the government reconsidering its position on Starlink?… It would be bold of me to assume.
Whats going on in your neck of the woods?
~B
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