WTF: Of a whole minister calling Zimbabwe the ‘one of the dirtiest countries in Africa’

So a complete minister on Monday was quoted saying that Zimbabwe was one of the dirtiest country in Africa amid warning of an outbreak of cholera and typhoid.

Environment minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri was widely quoted saying said statement about the county, of course without qualification of how one decides something of that nature is factual or even the best thing a government can say about its own country.

The implications of such an utterance are wide. You see, many people have not really traveled Africa. We are even tempted to suggest a significant amount of our very own government ministers have not traveled in Africa beyond air-conditioned rooms where they do not have to walk the slums of some of the armpits of Africa. When visiting, all they see are the paved roads, non-too-special really.

So when people hear a minister speak so disparagingly of its own, then it will be taken at face value. They will assume that we are as dirty has the dirtiest countries they have been to.

Sure, Zimbabwe has its problems and it is fair to say they are dire. Health minister Dr David Parirenyatwa has said there is a cholera and typhoid risk especially since the Harare City Council has slowed down access to clean running water for its residents.

There are incredible challenges we face every single day but a statement like that puts us in a space we have no business placing ourselves. We do need to talk about the deplorable state of the environment, the loss of trees and things of that sort. Honest conversations need to be had, but surely the government needs to move away from chiding its people has if they were little children to inspiring them to do better. Noone ever got better by being told they were the worst.

Tourism minister Walter Mzembi will be pulling his teeth out in anguish because from this, how does he sell Zimbabwe? We are dirty, your colleague has said, they will tell him.

What Muchinguri-Kashiri is the equivalent of a man walking up to a girl in order to woo her and the first thing he talks about is an exaggeration of the things he finds unflattering about himself.

And then tomorrow wonders why he can’t get laid…