A windfall that never was

But a mere realisation of the reality of humanity’s disposition to wrongdoing and the divinity of forgiveness is not the be-all and end-all of any similar misadventure by the traditional leaders in the future.

 

If anything, our chiefs need a major paradigm shift to transcend the colonial realm of chieftainship where white settler regimes in Rhodesia used those honourable gentlemen as instruments for oppressing blacks instead of helping with the improvement of their welfare. The chiefs were apparently content to preside over areas designated by the whites as “African reserves” some of them virtual wastelands where even blades of grass struggle in search of nutrients, not to mention food crops — while the colonial rulers basked in their sunny urban areas and in the luxury of wealth pillaged from the people out there in the countryside.

Those Zimbabweans much older than our independence will be aware that any chief who identified with the ideals of, and attempted to run with, the quest for the equality of all races before the eyes of God was stripped of his chain-of-authority for being viewed as challenging the supreme authority of the white rulers over their hapless subjects.

In a past-modern Zimbabwe it is imperative that chiefs break with their passivity of the past vis-à-vis development by becoming tools for the social and economic emancipation of the people under their jurisdiction.

That, therefore, should be the sine qua-non of present-day traditional rulership with the people looking up to the chiefs not as lords but as guiding stars in the formulation, supervision and implementation of socio-economic projects.

That the chiefs in Zvishavane allocated themselves hefty sums of money as sitting allowances, and in the process incurring the wrath of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister, Dr Ignatius Chombo appears to point to the absence of a clearly defined modus operandi as a guideline for the chiefs to follow in the operationalisation of the community share ownership scheme’s trust fund.

That parent anomaly would appear to indict policy makers who shirked their responsibility by not telling the chiefs, who oversee the fund in trustee to the people, how the money should be disbursed.

Now that the wrong deed was done, the chiefs in Zvishavane district, and those elsewhere in the country where community share ownership schemes were unveiled by President Mugabe to give rural areas, so long neglected by Rhodesian regimes, a bold new face, the chiefs should go back to school to be taught clear guidelines pertaining to the role that they should play as catalysts for development to integrate the rich urban sector and the poor communal lands where the majority of Zimbabweans live and whose rich natural resources have largely been exploited in the past and carted off to make the rich richer in the towns and cities.

Chiefs should not be more conspicuous by their shrill demands for posh cars from the Government to cruise their domains when white regimes did not even throw them a rickety bicycle for instance but instead expected them to foot it on routine visits to areas under their traditional authority.

The Government has allocated cars to traditional leaders for easy mobility when “supervising” projects in their areas and as much today’s chiefs should act, and be seen to do, as effective agents of development.

As things stand, the country is beset with almost intractable challenges especially those spawned by global warming and whose solutions are to be found in mitigation, and in adoption to new technologies.

Yet, sadly enough, chiefs are not always included if at all, as active participants in indabas discussing drought and floods which global warming, as a cosmic nemesis causes in a warpath against humanity for the latter’s reckless activities bedevilling the environment.

In fact, this pen wonders if the traditional leaders understand and appreciate the implications of global warming in order for them to effectively combat deforestation and veld fires for which Zimbabweans are wantonly responsible.

For instance, people defy government warnings and continue to hunt for the pot with veld fires, or to burn grass in pastures to scatter the seed for fluffy new grass to sprout for their livestock.

Hardly do these people realise that the carbon gases the fire pumps into the atmosphere trap and prevent the sun’s rays bouncing back from the earth thereby causing the globe to heat up dangerously.

Nor are the vandals of deforestation aware either that trees they cut down play a critical mitigation role in global warming by absorbing and sinking all those carbon gases spewed into the atmosphere from veld fires, unmodified, factory chimneys, as well as from unmodified car exhaust systems and from refrigerators of old technologies.

The wider public in Zimbabwe should disabuse themselves from a primitive mindset that believes ancestral spirits have the power to control weather conditions by causing drought and famine.

It is us, the living, who are solely responsible for the dysfunctional weather conditions through our irresponsible and unmitigated activities that impinge on the environment, the basis of human existence.

This pen suggests therefore that traditional leaders be educated through appropriate methods on how to look after the resources in their areas which are wont to suffer from the boomerang effects of global warming if the chiefs, their subordinates and the people under them do not jealously guard them through prevention of siltation to rivers and dams and through poor land use resulting in soil erosion among other human malpractices.

That way chiefs will become effective partners with Government in laying down a solid foundation for social and economic development for future generations.

As for those chiefs in the Midlands who have been ordered by Dr Chombo to return to the trustee account the sums of money that they allocated to themselves, only God knows if the amounts have not been blown up or if some of the money is tucked away under mattresses or in tin-banks in the traditional leaders’ homesteads.

Whatever the case might be however, that money has to go back where it belongs for safe-keeping and use on projects that benefit whole communities in the districts in question.