Mugabe: Zanu-PF's Old Ox

Those of us who grew up in rural Zimbabwe know what it is like to have an old ox that you trust and love so much. Everytime you inspan oxen to plough the fields, the old ox would be tathered to lead the team. It's age and creaky bones would be ignored.

It's back would be innured to the constant whiplashes to try and get a faster pace out it. Onlookers would wonder, often very loudly, whether the old ox could take another step without dropping dead. But the family, stranded with no other oxen to turn to, would keep prodding the plodding grand old sire into taking a few more steps, no matter how laboured.

Zanu-PF have got their old ox. Weathered by old age, many believing it can't take another step forward. However Zanu-PF, for lack of choice it seems, have tathered their old ox and brought it to the yoke again. They hope to prod it into plodding a few more years in power for them.

Their old ox, its ears inured to the constant whiplashes of criticism assailing it, has risen to the occasion and promised to plod forward a few more years of rule. That the old ox stumbled badly the last time they yoked it, seems relegated to realm of blissful oblivion. The herd of young steers snorting with impatience in the periphery seems ignored.

That the field ahead is littered with stumps that require more pulling power than old bones can muster seems to be totally absent from the party's future vision. They insist that their old ox is actually an old fox - willy and full of the necessary tricks to keep them ruling.

Us outsiders can only look and but wonder how many more steps the family can get out of the old ox. Sometime we pity the old ox, that no young steers seem ready to take the role of furrow leader (forosi). We can see that the ox is now old and tired, but it is the owners who will choose when to let it rest.

The MDC and Zanu-PF are the same.

My long standing argument has always been that the MDC are no better than Zanu-PF because they exhibit the same signs of intolerance, the same signs crony enrichment, the same signs on heavy handedness and the same cluelessness about the true meaning of freedom.

Both parties are full of people who brazenly use threats and insults to intimidate opponents, whether real or perceived. Both parties are full of people who shy away from intelligent discourse in favour of belligerent pronouncements, threatening accusation and a tar-brush approach to criticism.

Many of them exhibit political maturity below that of medieval warlords and pre-colonial African chiefs. Despite all of them making a lot of noise about the constitution, they seem to think their personal word is the supreme law of the country.

How else do you explain a sitting MP, making brazen threats like “Martin Chinyanga Da William, I have fired you from MDC from onwards you are no longer a member of MDCT have nothing to do with us. You can go and petition anywhere you want…I am an MP. I HAVE FIRED YOU”. This person seems to be totally unaware that there is something called due process, and a disciplinary committee.

Like Zanu-PF the MDC also exhibit an astounding level cluelessness about the technical aspects of running an economy. They seem to suffer from the same belief that authority can impose control on economic factors. The only thing authority can do is carefully study the factors and then adapt their own actions to suit the reality.

The size and expense of Zimbabwe's cabinet under Zanu-PF, made even worse under the GNU (Zanu-PF and MDC together), does not suit the reality that Zimbabwe is a country with a struggling economy.

Maybe I am dull stupid or something. Maybe it is because my mind is so simple, that I fail to understand how we can have more than seventy ministers and their deputies - each with several government bought cars - in a country that cannot provide a basic ambulance service in its capital city.

Is it too much of a request upon the powers that be, to ask them to give up some of their cars so that at least a few ambulances can be bought to take people to hospitals. Is it too much of a burden upon the powers that be, to ask them that give up a few of they foreign trips so that we can put just a few more medicines, even if only pain killers, in the cupboards of our clinics.

Dishonest Leadership is Zimbabwe's Biggest Problem

The major problem we have is that our leaders are not honest. They would impose price controls by day and rush to sell on the black-market by night. A classical case was when a woman was found with her boot full of newly printed money. She tried to contact a very close adviser to the reserve bank governor, who later described her as his 'intimate casual girlfriend' or mistress in simple English.

Officials were brazenly using laws and by-laws to loot legitimate businesses. A law imposing price limits would be passed by evening and the following morning price control teams would fan out and confiscate goods from supermarkets accused of overcharging. The same goods would later find their way onto the blackmarket at much much higher prices, with the same officials pocketing the money.

A classical case was the case where companies and organisations were forced to remit of bank their foreign currency in local banks with the promise that it would be kept as foreign currency. On several occasions such organisations would wake up to find that their money had been converted to Zim dollars at the official rate which was a miniscule of the black-market rate.

The Zimdollars given to the people who worked for the money, couldn't buy anything while those who just took the money would now buy luxury cars including umpteen cylinder Barabuses. Recently one such organisation filed a lawsuit to try and recover their money.

The tactics used by the then Zanu-PF only government to manage the economy were heavy handed, devoid of intelligent analysis, and often based upon spurious unscientifically tested assumptions. I see exactly the same kind of ignorant heavy handedness in the current demands that banks bring back money from 'offshore'. The minister now leading the heavy handed charge, Tendai Biti, now belongs to the MDC.

The pattern of lack of scientific study remains the same. The pattern of leaving their own personal benefits untouched and even growing, remains the same. The pattern of jumping at the mote in another's eye while gingerly stepping around the log in one's own eye remains the same.

My long standing opinion is that the difference between Zanu-PF and the MDC is that between a wolf and a jackal. Neither can be trusted with a flock of sheep. Neither can be trusted to run Zimbabwe properly. Neither can be trusted to eradicate corruption.

Unfortunately the landscape of political analysis is monopolised by analysts who don't see beyond party names. The political landscape is full of people who are blind to all other facts except the name of the party. These analysts some of them acclaimed academics endeavour to reduce all political discourse to an Orwellian chant of "so'n'so good, so'n'so bad"

Animal farm is a story about animals who overthrow the leadership of humans and institute a slogan of 'Four legs good, two legs bad'. As the pigs who took over the running of the farm start to enjoy the comforts left behind by humans and learn to walk on their hind legs, the slogan us changed to 'Four legs good, two legs better!'

Before the GNU the opposition airwaves were full of chants of 'MDC good, Mugabe bad." Since the MDC leaders got into government and started to enjoy the wamth and comforts of power the chants have been slowly migrating towards 'Mugabe good, MDC better'. I would rather chant "MDC and Zanu-PF 'same differnce'".

A write up on Wikipedia about Animal Farm rightly says that the novel "portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution (and not the act of revolution itself), it also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen"

In Zimbabwe corruption is the grindstone that has been tied around the country's neck. Ignorance has been the scourge that has riven incompetent leadership of key institutions like the Reserve Bank with disastrous consequences. In difference by top leadership whose pockets are not affected, or are actually fattened, by mismanagement of the economy has allowed horrors to be visited upon the masses.

We need responsible government

"................. is not Government that puts food on the table for civil servants." -- Morgan Tsvangirai

It is the responsibility of government to put food on the tables of civil servants. Government is their employer, and government is not a slave running entity. It is the responsibility of every employer who is not a slave runner to provide living wages for his workers. Any caring employer should try and ensure the welfare of their employees is well looked after.

 What is not government's responsibility, is to put multiple cars in the garages of senior politicians and ensure astronomically paying jobs for the cronies and relatives of political leaders.

Right now, the Zimbabwe government is underpaying civil servants because it is spending too much on an over-bloated executive (70 plus ministerial level posts are simply too much!).

On top of that some government arms such as the PM's office are famous for having a very large 'kitchen cabinets'. That is people with no official role in government but just hanging onto the coat tails of appointed leaders in order to make money.

I think Mangosuthu Buthelezi captured the essense of Zimbabwe's problem (and much of Africa) when he said "Too many, and I dare say the overwhelming majority, are trying to make money on account of holding public office, being in politics or exercising public power."

As long as that political culture remains, Africa is going nowhere in terms of development. As long as Zimbabwe's politicians are more worried about making money for themselves first and for their family and friends second, the life of ordinary Zimbabweans is going to be hell.

No all of us are connected to a rich relative or friend. The only chance that we have is through a fair system that allows us to enjoy the fruits of our hard work. A system that takes from us the hard-workers and gives to a few who happen to know somebody high up is never going to work.

We need fairness.

Land Dispute In Zimbabwe's Communal Lands

By Marimo Ronald - Ndinokumbirawo kuti ndibatsirwe neruzhinji kuti ndizive masimba a sabhuku zvichienderana nekutongwa kwemabhuku .Ndiri kugara mubhuku raKahari mudunhu ra chief Chikwaka nyaya irikundishungurudza ndeyekuti sabhuku anandakavakidzana naye anonzi Jemera Chirima anoti avakuda kundibvisa panvimbo yandakasiyiwa nevabereki vangu. vabereki vangu vakatanga kugara mubhuku iri 1949 kusvika parinhasi chinondinetsa ndochokuti vabereki vangu vari vapenyu sabhuku uyu haana kumbotaura zvomuganhu .uye vabereki vangu vakagariswa patsva nachigovanyika ,minda yavo ine madundhunduru. madhomini akavagarisa anononzi Mandhava na Magwenzi . Zvitupa zvavo kusvikira panechangu zvakanyorwa kunzi bhuku Kahari .Chirikundinetsa ndeckuti Zvondonzi ndibve Inzvimbo yaNyamasoka ndoenda kupi nemhuri uye ini ndirikuona kunge Sabhuku uyu arikutengesa nzvimbo saka kupera kwaita kwake ndikokwavekukonzera kuti atsvagurudze zvemiganhu. Vanokwanisa kundipawo mazano ngavandibatsirewo ndashaiwa zano nenyaya iyi.

Translation

By Marimo Ronald - I need help to understand the powers of a headman over the village they preside over. I stay in Kahari village in Chief Chikwaka's area. My problem is that my headman Jemera Chirima wants to evict me from the home I inherited from my parents. My parents moved to this village in 1949. My parents were allocated the land by Chigovanyika and the agricultural demonstrators who demarcated the land are Mandhava and Magwenzi.  While my parents were alive the headman never mentioned anything about boundaries. My national identification card and those of my parents state that we come from Kahari village. My problem is that I am now being asked to move away and allow Nyamasoka to move in. Where do I go with my family. I thing the headman has been accepting money to allocate land. Now he has run out of land in his jurisdiction, he wants to evict me. I need your help because I am at my wits' end.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/ziffe/permalink/244965172249007/

Your problem illustrates one of the problems left behind by colonialists and not addressed at all by subsequent land reform programs. In terms of the law neither you nor the Sabhuku owns the land. In the early colonial days communal land was called the Queen's Land. Native reserves were created by colonial state on the Queen's Land. In other words the land legally belonged to the Queen and natives were only allowed to stay there upon the Queen's grace.

As you can see the native residents were not owners of the land and if the Queen (upon the recommendation of the colonial government) decided to use the land for something else, they could not take her to court. This was designed to make it easy to evict the natives if the land was allocated to whites as happened with the Tangwena people of Gairezi.

After Ian Smith's UDI the land became Tribal Trust Lands. The state took over ownership from the Queen (since Ian Smith was unilaterally declaring independence from the Queen ruled Great Britain). However the people living on the land were still not given formal title to the land.

After independence the land was rechristened Communal Lands but was still left in the ownership of the state. The residents of communal lands still do not have formal title to the land.

When white farmers were evicted, most of them took the state to court. That is because they have formal title (registered ownership) of the land (commonly referred to as title deeds or deed of grant). On the other hand people like the Tangwena and Chiadzwa people had no recourse to the law because they had no registered title to the land they called their homes. Unfortunately this lack of registered deed of grant or lease, applies to all people in communal lands (i.e. former native reserves (maruzevha) and communalised resettlements (minda mirefu)).

A deed of grant establishes the fact of who owns what land and the boundaries of the land. If you have no such record, the court has to rely of the word of witnesses and then it becomes your word against the Sabhuku's and any other witnesses either of you might call before the court. Even then the rights that both of you enjoy are less than those of a registered title holder. The colonial system deliberately left natives without adequate rights and protection.

I am not aware of any cases involving a traditional leader and a tenant that have been taken to court, so I do not know if there is a legal precedent to your case. Disputes such as the Tangwena case and the Chiadzwa case have been disputes between the state and occupants of communal lands.

In both cases what happened has depended on the political mood of the moment. As such their fate has been entirely at the whim of politicians. If the politics of the day is in your favour then good for you, but if things go the other way then you are virtually without legal protection.

In today's terms it may boil down to whether you are a Zanu-PF member or an MDC member. Being neutral sometimes doesn't help because each group then accuses you of belonging to the other.

I do not want to lie to you and say that I know the exact solution to your problem. The best option is to maintain good relations with your neighbours such as the sabhuku, if that is possible, so that you avoid giving each other problems.

The second option is to simply stay put and do nothing. The Sabhuku does not have the legal authority to evict you. But remember this won't stop him from using illegal violence against you. You should carefully consider your safety before taking this route.

Another option is to try and use traditional channels. You can take your case to the chief of your area. The chief can then make a determination. Traditionally the chief's authority is above that of the Sabhuku. However it is very likely the Sabhuku will bear a grudge against you for a long time and could find other ways of causing you trouble in future.

Lastly you can explore the idea of obtaining a peace order against the Sabhuku and others disturbing your peace. This affords you protection in terms of state law, provided the law is professionally and impartially enforced. I would also suggest that you approach Ministry of Lands and/or Ministry of Local Government officials in your district and obtain their opinion. They are the groups most likely to have dealt with similar cases in the past.

But let me stress the best way to solve any dispute is to avoid it. Therefore the best option would be to maintain good relations with your neighbours and avoid the dispute in the first place. That would mean negotiating your way out of the predicament by talking to the Sabhuku. For matters to come to this point, there must be something you and him are disagreeing about which you havent't mentioned. Pamwe makamitisirana vana kana kutorerana vakadzi (nyangwe vekubhawa).

You know your own circumstances better than I do so at the end of the day everything depends on your wise judgement. Make your decisions very carefully because this matter can affect you for the rest of your life.

Why we need a small lean government

Right now in Zimbabwe we have a situation were government officials and ministers have several cars bought by the taxpayer. The normal rule with official cars is they should be driven by the person to whom it is allocated or when that person is a passenger.

Therefore an official has no need for more than one car because they cannot ride in more than one car. Zimbabwean officials have multiple cars just for the sake of status, not because they need them.

A bloated, extravagant and expensive top
hierarchy of government is a waste of money.

At the same time ordinary people are suffering from lack of simple infrastructure and services. People have to take each other to hospital in scotch carts and wheelbarrows. Yet the money that is used to buy extra status symbol cars for officials could be used to buy simple ambulances and enough for every district.

A small efficient top hierarchy will free up money
to provide services to the people.

As mentioned earlier each official only NEEDS one car. Any special purpose vehicles should be pool cars.

I do not buy the argument that you need big 4x4s because the roads in most of the constituencies are bad and cannot be accessed with ordinary cars. Fix the roads so that you can go there with ordinary cars. A car for an official is only used by that official, whereas a road is used by thousands of people.

There is something called efficiency. Isn't it more efficient to spend money for the direct benefit of more people than for the benefit of one person.

The money saved from buying less and cheaper cars for officials can be used to provide sorely needed services. It can also be used to provide better salaries for underpaid civil servants.