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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
What everyone had been waiting for after the election results were known finally came on Tuesday with the announcement of a new Cabinet to chart the way forward socially and economically for this country in the next five years. In appointing the new Cabinet, President Mugabe appears to have done his best by putting together a team that should deliver on the wishes and aspirations of the masses as demonstrated by the massive mandate that the President and his ruling party received in the elections.
But whether each and every one of those appointed to Cabinet will rise up to the occasion as no doubt is expected of them by both the Head of State and the electorate remains to be seen. For, as the saying goes, you may take a horse to the river but cannot make it drink the water.
In the case of those who got the nod over others as Cabinet ministers or as deputies, the horse-and–water scenario becomes a revered bromide, in which case the horse drinks the water or else.
As things stand in Zimbabwe today, the country is at war with external political and economic foes doing their damnedest to make this country sink, helped by their local surrogates in certain sections of Zimbabwean media. This therefore also suggests that the country is at war with media houses that appear to draw their allegiance from foreign quarters if tableau of disinformation, or deliberate misinformation fed the people of this country is anything to go by.
In the latter war front a country needs men of sterner stuff, like Professor Jonathan Moyo, to reform the deformed sections of the media that, informed by Western press media, also regards lies as “facts” that are fleshed out into a story and fed to the public with the results that the gullible will take such a story as gospel truth.
And yet those who are properly schooled in journalism should know that facts that are bereft of any truth are nothing but mere skeletons that do not constitute a living animal or person to be revered by anyone but must be discarded for what they truly are- dry, fleshless bones with not even a hint of marrow in them.
One might then say, the return of Professor Moyo to his old Cabinet post as Information Minister — as did his other Cabinet colleagues — demonstrates a commitment to one’s motherland that new ministers, their deputies and others in the service of this nation must emulate.
That Professor Moyo was re-appointed to Cabinet with no constituency to represent can only testify to his total focus on his party and the country’s ideology so that the waves of his circumstances appeared stronger, threatening or treacherous may have tossed him here or there but never really succeed in engulfing him.
It is in the same light that other ministers who remained where they were before should be celebrated for their dedication to duty and loyalty to their leader and to the motherland.
These two values — dedication and loyalty — should be accompanied with fear of and humility before God on whose grace the leaders find themselves in the positions in which they are.
And, as anyone should know, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and wisdom, which is better than weapons of war, is one of a package of arsenals, the others being money and skills, that a government should be equipped with to succeed in a fight against poverty which is contrary to happiness, peace and stability in any society.
As for skills, this country has them aplenty although not necessarily readily available as many are widely dispersed in Africa as well as overseas and will need to be enticed back home by dangling a carrot.
As for the money the country’s rich mineral resources should come to the fore in resuscitating an industrial sector virtually brought to its knees by illegal western sanctions, as well as in giving the civil service an attractive wage to motivate government servants who will in turn effectively carry out or help in carrying out the various services instrumental to social and economic revival in the nation.
When, for instance, industries are brought back to life again, more people will be employed and this will broaden the tax base, thereby putting more money into the government’s kitty for use in other important national tasks.
The new Cabinet has other, notable features, namely emphasis given to irrigation development and livestock which are headed by two deputy ministers under Dr Joseph Made’s Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation.
Irrigation development is critical to sustainable food production especially now under the vagaries of global warming and climate change which have seen perennial droughts in many parts of the country. If water is harnessed and preserved, it can then be used in the event of drought to produce food under irrigation as well as to water livestock.
Cattle in many parts of the country, particularly Matabeleland South, have been decimated by drought and the restocking process is necessary in that province as well as in others where people have lost draught power due to drought.
But in restocking livestock in those areas the authorities must be careful not to rely too much on imported semen as the cattle bred that way might not resist the effects of climate change in this country. The hardy local breed should be preferred instead.
Changed climatic conditions must necessarily bring about changes in people’s habitual cropping practices, with short season varieties taking precedence over long season varieties in areas where rainfall patterns have thinned progressively global warming takes a toll on the country.
On the whole, new Cabinet ministers have no excuse whatsoever to give for any inability to carry out their duties to the full, unlike in the inclusive government when some ministers from opposition parties were blamed for deliberately frustrating development in various sectors by not playing ball to their Zanu-PF colleagues.
This time around, however, those who dose in harness should be freed to complete their sleep out of the way of a government on a warpath against under- development and poverty and perhaps for the first time since independence ministers who failed to do their job should be fired outrightly — as a warning to any other sluggards hibernating in government — rather than demote them as such an act will mean cascading laziness to the lower structures of government.
In other words, every minister or deputy minister or any other civil servant for that matter should realise that the country is on a warpath and that, as social and economic soldiers themselves, they are under marching orders. If they fall out of step they are out of the march all together.
The people of this country voted into government, not masters but servants who must carry out the wishes of the electorate, the masters. What this also suggests is that those who lost in the elections and might wish to decide to pull down the victors should be regarded as part of the enemy that the new government is fighting to make Zimbabwe not only a better country for all to live in but also a shining example on the African continent.
In efforts to improve the lives of Zimbabweans, the Government has celebrated this year of jubilee by ordering the cancellation by local authorities of debts in water bills and rates with Zesa being asked to follow suit by deleting all debts owed for domestic power supplies.
The government’s move suggests that this should mark a big start in giving Zimbabweans a better new lease of life and the onus for this task lies on the shoulders of the new Cabinet.
The announcement of provincial ministers of state in accordance with the new constitution should witness an added impetus in the development of those areas if the ministers responsible are given the necessary financial, material as well as the support of the people under jurisdiction.
Zimbabweans of different colour, religion or creed or political persuasion should regard themselves as being engaged in a co-operative do or die situation and must choose the former in order for them to survive.
Online Reporter