| 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment