Tackling corruption is the cornerstone to Zimbabwe's future

Having read Eddie Cross' write up about his crystal ball, I am convinced that the MDC still have no clue on how to take Zimbabwe forward if they win. In fact one cannot be sure that they will handle a transition correctly. They have already failed dismally at their first opportunity to handle a transition in 2008.

The MDC must see beyond Mugabe.

If for a moment the MDC could get their eyes out of the long narrow pipe that only sees Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF, then maybe they could see the rest of us Zimbabweans. Judging by Eddie's sentiments, their vision never progresses beyond defeating Zanu-PF to serving Zimbabwe. They are like a young couple that cannot see that beyond enjoying the sex there is something called 'looking after the family'.

As usual Eddie drones on about his wounded buffalo theory of Mugabe. Eddie, Mugabe is not the issue, we ordinary Zimbabweans are the real issue. Your party has never been convincing that they have our interests at heart beyond using us to get power from Mugabe.

Eddie makes two interesting revelations. The first is that it is Mugabe who is pushing not to break the current constitutional mandate which sees his term ending in June 2013. The other is that the MDC wanted to ignore that constitutional mandate until the conditions were right for them to win.

Excuse me. Who are the democrats here? The ones who want to follow the constitution come what may, or the ones who want to throw the current constitution into the dustbin because they are not sure of victory?

Eddie's language is also darkly ominous. He is promising the whole of Zimbabwe will have 'buffalo steaks' if the MDC wins. This is a not so well veiled threat that there will be a witch-hunt for Zanu-PF supporters, real or perceived. I wonder what kind of democracy it is that will be founded on a witch-hunt of opponents. Maybe be a Josef Stalin type of democracy.

Despite all their warts and moles, Zanu-PF are still Zimbabweans with a substantial level of support. True democrats will guarantee them their right to associate freely, not promise Stalinist purges of them.

It seems also my rantings and ravings about what ought to matter for Zimbabwe have been getting an ear. For the first time I have heard Eddie talk about a 'small government' of 20 ministers. By my standards 20 is still a huge number for a country Zimbabwe's size.

What still worries me is that, Eddie does not talk about limiting the ministers ability to free-load on government resources. One minister one car in five years, is my motto these days. Right now we have 77 ministerial level people who spend like 400 ministers.

Small government: It's no use having 20 ministers who spent like a 100 ministers.

It is no use having 20 ministers who spend like a 100 ministers. We will end up with exactly the same problem of too much money being spend aggrandising politicians and almost nothing being left for delivering services to the people.

If the British could fire a minister for merely riding a bicycle out of the wrong gate, imagine what should be happening in Zimbabwe where ministers, their relatives and even the girlfriends routinely drive through toll gates without paying.

Eddie also talks like a true politician - promising things he can never hope to deliver personally. He tells us that tourism will grow to 20% of regional arrivals. Yet he doesn't mention that the current economic recession will limit the ability of First World holiday makers to spend for some time to come. Greece, whose economy was highly dependent on tourism, is currently the sickest man in the European Union. This is not exactly the right time to be looking to tourism for economic emancipation.

Eddie also tells us the investors will pour money into mining with such an air of confidence that you would think he was giving them instructions on where and when to invest. Yet the truth is that commodity prices have been struggling to sustain investment in mining worldwide. Many of the biggest mining companies are already struggling because of marginal profitability.

The only thing most likely to attract investors is long term low cost in production. Zimbabwe might have a slight edge over South Africa in that its labour force is highly educated and less unionised. The removal of political uncertainties would help Zimbabwe, but it is not the ultimate panacea. A lot of other work still needs to be done to attract investment.

For example, in this day and age when email, and instant messaging are the cornerstone of business communication, it doesn't help that broadband connectivity is spotty and exorbitant. It costs $100 a month to get a 2GB connection in Zimbabwe. Sign on fees and annual fees are not part of this cost. The 10GB connection that I am using right now costs me about $15 with a free ADSL modem and not other hidden costs.

Political uncertainty is not the only inhibitor to investment.

Zimbabwe's infrastructure is also increasing run down and inadequate. Infrastructure designed for a population of 7 million is the same we are still using for 13 million people. Instead of improving the infrastructure, the government is rather using the inadequacy as an excuse to extort exorbitant fees from the public.

Eddie's language on land reform is also vague, I suspect deliberately. It just promises 'secure land tenure' but does not mention that the tenure is now practically contested between 180 000 black resettled families and 4000 white farmers.

Which of these two groups is Eddie promising 'secure tenure'. Obviously the vague language is designed to hoodwink one of the groups. I can only hazard a guess that Eddie promising secure tenure to his kith and kin. The black peasants are the ones being hoodwinked. The MDC needs their votes first before they can give back secure tenure to white farmers.

Most likely the black peasants will be returned to tenure-less communal lands where they were forcibly put by Eddie's colonial ancestors in the first place. That amounts to continuing to enforce the system of native reserves designed by colonialists to deprive blacks of any land rights and reduce them to a mere labour force for settlers. This was so starkly illustrated by the recent case of two chiefs who lost an attempt to challenge the granting of a lease to a private company on 'their' land.

My own view is that it is now impractical and potentially destabilising to try and uproot the resettled peasants. The issue that is best worked upon is fair compensation. The sticking question is by whom. Mugabe says by the British, since they were responsible for colonisation in the first place. I suspect the MDC will want to shift the compensation burden to the Zimbabwean taxpayer to appease their chief sponsors.

Peasants need secure and economically liquid land tenure too.

The MDC also says nothing about indigenization. The fact that colonial systems deliberately disadvantage blacks is not a figment of anyone's imagination. It is a reality of our history. I often mention how my family struggled in the native purchase areas without any support from the white government, and in the face of deliberate policies designed to hand advantage unfairly to whites such as selective pricing of produce.

Surely no one in their right mind will argue that the effects of those racist policies should not be mitigated against today. South Africa has indigenization in the form of BBBEE (broad based black economic empowerment). Therefore indigenization is not a policy unique to Zimbabwe.

Some form of black economic empowerment will need to be considered by the MDC. Zimbabwe is full of well educated youngsters who need support in the ventures they are attempting to start. The MDC is essentially saying these youngsters should not aspire to be entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg. Rather, according to the MDC, they should only aspire to be employees, mostly as lowly farm workers.

I have no objection to the Zimbabwe economy being kick-started by foreign investment. However Zimbabwe can only derive maximum benefit if her people have ownership of a fair share of the economy. There has to be a mechanism for ensuring that a fair proportion of the profits remain in Zimbabwe. There also has to be a mechanism for capacitating Zimbabweans to be self reliant.

The whole MDC programme is founded on mere hatred of Zanu-PF, not any progressive thinking about the needs of Zimbabwe. To me that is a serious shortcoming. What is needed is in Zimbabwe is not mere replacement of a political party, but a committed tackling of the culture of corruption that now pervades every sphere of Zimbabwean life. Even headmasters are now routinely demanding bribes to allocate places in their schools.

When we get the hyenas out of the goat pen, we need to make sure we are not putting jackals in there.

Chiefs loose case in rural land dispute in Zimbabwe

Recently two chiefs took a local company that had been granted a land lease by the Masvingo Rural District council to court. Both chiefs were demanding compensation for violation of 'their' land by the company.

The problem is that the Chiefs do not understand the current land tenure system, otherwise they would never have wasted their time going to court. The land is not theirs. It belongs to the state. It is only the state in the form of Masvingo Rural District council, which could have taken the company to court.

They also do not follow history because if they had followed, and understood, the travails of Rekai Tangwena and his people, they would have understood that they are powerless. Even more recently if they could have followed the Chiadzwa happenings.

The bottom line, and rule of thump, is if YOU do not have a piece of paper called a deed of grant (title deeds) for the land you care calling your own, then the land belongs to the state, or to someone else granted tenure by the state.

The state is at liberty to do what it wants with the land including kicking the natives off, which is what happened to the Tangwena people and Chiadzwa people.

You do not have the power to challenge the state because in the eyes of the courts, if you don't have a deed of grant to produce before the court, you haven't proved the land is yours. You are absolutely no different from me coming from Chivhu to claim that Sviba hills is my land.

The court might listen to the circumstantial evidence of witnesses to try and make a decision but in this case the authority, the Rural District Council, had actually given Econet a lease. The RDC is the arm of the state (owner of the land) administering the land at district level, not chiefs.

The chiefs should remember that the land they live in is called Maruzevha a name which arises from Native Reserves. Under Southern Rhodesia native reserves were the Queen's Land, the personal property of Elizabeth Mountbatten nee Windsor (otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth II). Under Ian Smith's UDI and Muzorewa's Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, they became Tribal Trust Lands held in trust by the government. In Zimbabwe they became Communal Lands still held in trust by the government.

The natives (meaning the chiefs and their people) are allowed to stay on that land UPON THE GRACE of the owner. In the early days the phrase 'upon the grace of the Queen' was frequently used.

Kuti ndinyatsopedzeredza nemuchivanhu, Madzishe nevanhu venyu kugara kwamakaita haasi mano enyu asi kuti kunzwirwa tsitsi (upon the grace) nevaridzi vevhu iroro, Hurumende. Panguva yehutapwa ranga riri ivhu raQueen.

Note that this is in contrast to farmers all of whom had deeds of grant. Because of that, the farmers have the power to take the State to court. Chiefs don't.

Farmers have gone as far as to regional tribunals and other international law bodies because in terms of the Roman-Dutch law system, their deeds of grant are recognized as proof of ownership of the land.

Chiefs cannot do that, as these two chiefs have just discovered. They can not even go beyond the local magistrate.

The fact that the chiefs and their people are powerless to do anything against the state is not an accident. That is exactly how the colonial system was designed - taking away all rights from the natives while giving the settlers as much rights as they needed to deal quickly with any natives who chose to be troublesome.

What this means is that if anyone goes to the state and gets a lease from the RDC for say a chief's fields and homestead, the chief or anyone else is powerless to stop the RDC from granting the lease. The people of Tangwena had their homes bulldozed because the then Rhodesian state had decided to grant someone else the land.

That is the law as it stands. When our politicians agree to uphold 'the rule of law' they are effectively agreeing to maintain a system that doesn't recognise the land where 90% of the population have homes as the occupants' property.

That the politicians have failed to reform the system - over three decades - is part of the ignorance that I am always complaining about. Most of the politicians do not know the finer details of the system. They never even stop for a minute to think about it.

Some are even trying to abuse it like the colonialists did. There have been persistent rumours that certain powerful people in Buhera have been trying to move villagers to enlarge their fields.

The Herald is not to blame for the Anglicans' problems

After my recent postings about the Anglican saga, it has been explained to me that Kunonga's problems with the church started well before 2007.

According to the source, the problem started with Kunonga playing the race card against Tim Neil, during his election. He reportedly then proceeded to victimize a number of priests as well as appoint un-ordained and untrained people to posts which required ordainment and training.

The world media regularly refers to Kunonga as 'Mugabe Bishop'.

Kunonga was then charged with maladministration by the church, and summoned for ecclesiastical trial. According to the source that is when Kunonga played the political card and made overtures to Zanu-PF.

According to the source it this point it was inevitable that the church was going to split. He claims the real catalyst for the split was that the regional archbishop, Archbishop Malango who had been protecting Kunonga since 2001 retired and was replaced by Archbishop Chama.

Unfortunately, that is not the story as it has been told, not just in the Zimbabwe state media, but in the international media and in general.

The information above shows that Kunonga's problem had nothing to do with politics but abuse of power. It also makes it clear that political associations only came in when Kunonga was looking for backers.

The source claims that Kunonga's ecclesiastical trial was 'frustrated into abortion by [the Herald]'. That is a very myopic view. The Herald were not even party to the trial so I fail to understand exactly how they did that.

The Herald is not the Anglican church's public relations department. It cannot be expected to paint an accurate picture on behalf of the church. If the judges or whoever was at the trial ended up fighting among themselves, blame it on their own confusion.

Public relations does not work on auto-pilot

If one searches Google for the word Kunonga most of the news articles you come up with will refer to him as 'Mugabe bishop'. The Wikipedia page on him states that his main problem with Anglicans was 'his ardent support of Robert Mugabe'.

This is clear evidence that there is a wide perception out there that Kunonga's problems are as a result of his political views. Surely the Anglican church only have themselves to blame, not the Herald, for allowing that perception to dominate the truth.

If indeed Kunonga was being persecuted for his political views, then I would have absolutely no hesitation in condemning the Anglican church for trying to impose its political views on its congregation.

However if it was about the incidents which are now being cited of victimization of priests and general maladministration  then the church was absolutely right.

What I fault the church with is allowing the issue to be incorrectly characterised in the general media for long. It should have been made very clear long ago that Kunonga's problems had nothing to do with politics but his own maladministration of the Church.

Trying Kunonga for maladministration is proper; for his political views is human rights abuse

I am sure if that had been made clear, even Zanu-PF wouldn't have offered him protection. Much of the world out there believes Kunonga was targeted for supporting Robert Mugabe.

As we speak some some are trying to characterize his current travails as a humiliation of Zanu-PF. Yet judging by Herald reports Zanu-PF have clearly washed their hands of him.

By simply correctly and accurately communicating the real facts behind the Kunonga saga, the Anglican church could have saved their congregation a lot of gnashing of the teeth.

It is the job of the church to make sure its position is clearly communicated. Public relations does not work on auto-pilot.

Corruption and Patronage must go - otherwise Indigenisation and JUICE won't make a difference

Both Zanu-PF and the MDC are swinging into election mode. For us the people of Zimbabwe we have leant the lesson that election time is empty promise season. Political parties will say anything and everything that they think will get our votes. However we now know that their promises count for nothing.

In the midst of all the flowery rhetoric and lofty promises being made, I for one continue to sorely miss what I consider to be the basic tenets of good governance in Zimbabwe. My premise is that to have good governance we must end political patronage and the corruption it gives rise to.

The fundamental principle of ending patronage, is to reduce the government to as few ministers as possible. I have earlier shown that the number of Zimbabwe's ministers is astronomical compared to the world's leading economies and largest countries. I have also illustrated how the lifestyle of ministers compared to ordinary people is simply unsustainable.

The only reason why we have an astronomical number of ministries is that both parties, Zanu-PF and the MDC, feel that their high ranking members have to be rewarded with senior posts upon the party making it into power. This has got nothing to do with the efficient administration of Zimbabwe but an unjustified feeling of entitlement among politicians.

I first made this point when the two parties signed the GPA. Then I characterised them as hyenas and leopards negotiating of the goat carcass that is the welfare of Zimbabwe's people. The moment the announced the sharing of ministries I immediately complained that the number was too much. To prove my point, the country's economy has struggled to recover under the weight of the bloated GPA government.

As long as government is bloated, no matter how many JUICEs and Indigennisations we have, Zimbabwe will never prosper. All the money meant to circulate in the economy will be quickly siphoned off into private pockets.

Coupled with the problem that our politicians want to show off by importing very, very expensive luxury goods, money siphoned into the private pockets of politicians is quickly taken out of the country leaving the country with nothing.

As long as the problem of corruption, patronage and unnecessary extravagance is not tackled, we will never ever have a 100 billion dollar economy.


On the MDC's part, the JUICE plan is not a plan that is meant to turn around the Zimbabwe economy but a plan that is meant to buy votes this coming elections and no more. It is not a plan meant to achieve success for Zimbabwe but a plan meant to win power for the MDC.

The people who came up with this plan were answering the question, 'what do we tell these people so that they vote for us?'

They were not answering the question, 'what do we do to develop Zimbabwe?'

What happens to the economy after they win power is not guaranteed and can never be guaranteed. The only thing guaranteed is that they will get a lot of prestige and use it to make money.

All the countries that wait for others to come and invest are poor.

On Zanu-PF's part talk of indigenisation is mostly cover for well connected politicians grabbing going concerns and running them down. True indigenisation would entail fostering the growth of new black owned enterprises. However the party has thrown spanners into the works of growing black owned companies like they once did with Econet. Anybody who is not politically connected to Zanu-PF is treated as a threat.

Foreign investment is already happening. We have had companies mining granite in Mutoko for years. In Chiyadzwa while the Chinese are the most publicised, their are four mining companies one of them having Italian roots. The platinum and gold sectors are bustling with investment.

Yet all these investments are count for nothing because money is being wasted in a huge bloated executive as well as rampant corruption and personalisation of national resources by politicians.

What does the existing foreign investment means for ordinary Zimbabweans. For Chiyadzwa villagers it has meant being kicked out of their homes like dogs to allow for top politicians to make money through demanding lucrative kickbacks and cutbacks from the so called foreign investors.

Right now we are sitting with a problem of billions of tones of iron ore reserves that have been given away for a song to an Indian company.

The other serious problem we have is simple plain ignorance in the top echelons of government. A patently ludicrous manifestation of this ignorance is when several senior cabinet ministers were made to sit shoeless in front of a school drop-out in the belief that pure refined diesel would then flow out of solid rock.

It is the same kind of ignorance that saw a so called professor, giving away our iron ore reserves for a song.

A few years back the entire country was made to run around planting jatropha, which was supposed to be turned into bio-diesel. While it is possible for various plant oils to be refined into diesel, one needs to do thorough research and carefully consider any intellectual property issues regarding the process before just jumping in on the deep end.

The MDC's JUICE plan is loaded on futuristic promises but empty on current action. They forget that we are not new to futuristic plans and are not as gullible anymore. Zanu-PF took us through a series of five year plans. Going by the promises made then Zimbabwe should have been a first world country by now.

We even had something called housing for all by 2000. Going by the promises made then every Zimbabwe would have been living in a mansion by year 2000. Yet all we ended up with was Operation Murambatsvina.

Good plans for providing houses did exist. One such plan was the Pay for Your House Scheme started by the Ministry of Construction. That was a very good plan. However it was soon torpedoed by rampant corruption is bigwigs diverted pool funds to build their own mansions.

Even progress that had already been made has been reversed by corruption. Right now as I write this the railway line that had been electrified between Harare and Gweru has been stripped bare of copper catenaries in one the saddest stories of infrastructure destruction.

If rumours are to be believed this was all the work of our self-centred and greedy politicians. Imagine the sheer stupidity of taking a refined product already in use and selling is as scrap which needs to be refined and tuned into a useful product all over again.

We have been listening to lofty plans for 30 years. We are being fed lofty plans now. But nothing is ever going to come of them unless the fundamental problem of patronage, gravy train seat allocation and government bloatware is addressed.

That doesn't need a plan. All it needs is a simple cabinet reshuffle.