Online Reporter
COMMUNION with Bishop Lazarus
One afternoon — on January 13, 2018, to be exact — President ED, who was barely three months into his new onerous job as the First Citizen, stood somewhere in Gweru before a gathering of the country’s 286 chiefs and said something shocking.
“We have sanctions that have set us back, but we shouldn’t continue moaning about sanctions. With what we have, if we unite, our country will rise again. Then you would realise that we now have a solution for our agriculture in the area of food security and a solution for our manufacturing . . . ,” he told the slack-jawed audience.
The following day, this publication, The Sunday Mail, ran a story headlined “Stop moaning about sanctions: ED”, which attracted derision, cynicism and incredulity from the usual quarters. Who could blame them? Definitely not Bishop Lazarus.
It was obviously shocking because Zimbabwe at that time — even if it was 17 long years after the enactment of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) — was still licking open and weeping wounds from coercive measures that had sent the economy into a tailspin, culminating in the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar by 2009.
So, to sound an optimistic note amid such ruinous sanctions, which had wrecked countless lives and left a seemingly permanent scar on the economy, would have naturally been considered as hopelessly optimistic at best and daydreaming at worst.
Even ED’s staunchest supporters would have questioned whether the man was not underestimating the task that lay ahead.
But fast-forward to 2026, eight years down the road, Zimbabwe’s economic performance is only being described in superlatives.
What used to be grudgingly acknowledged behind closed doors is now being openly trumpeted, including by erstwhile incorrigible pessimists.
The latest disciple of Zimbabwe’s gospel of economic resurgence is of course Duma Boko, the president of neighbouring Botswana, who, through his recent three-day stayover, could not help but effusively express his wonderment with the frenetic pace of activity and economic growth taking place.
He bore witness to streets clogged with vehicular traffic — itself a sign of an economy on the move — and talked about the impressive construction activity, which is also benefitting brickmakers from Botswana.
Zimbabwe’s economy, he observed and concluded, was growing at a “blistering” pace.
On its irrepressible path to become an empowered, highly industrialised, modern and prosperous State, Zimbabwe has clearly won over a lot of admirers, not least the African Development Bank and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, which have been overawed by the manner and rate at which the country has managed to reclaim its lost status as a major agricultural producer.
We are now harvesting record quantities of wheat that seemed improbable or impossible just a few years ago.
In fact, we are now the second wheat self-sufficient country on the continent.
All things being equal, our farmers are more than likely to smash another record this year.
It is the same for tobacco, where beneficiaries of the Land Reform Programme are harvesting a fortune from the soil bought with the blood of our gallant freedom fighters and reclaimed through the revolutionary fervour of our people.
Inflation, the chief tormentor of Zimbabweans for the best part of two decades, has finally been tamed, happily dropping to single-digit level in local currency terms, the first time in nearly 30 years.
So, on that fateful day when ED defiantly vowed that Zimbabwe could still grow despite and in spite of the debilitating scourge of sanctions, that was not false bravado but the steely determination, willpower, belief, experience and faith of a man who was dead set on achieving the vision he had set for the country.
You underestimate ED at your peril.
This is a man whose life was, for more than six decades, shaped in the crucible of Zimbabwe’s struggle, mostly in the tactical and highly cerebral field of intelligence.
All his stripes are well-earned.
This means Zimbabwe’s economic resurgence is far from being fortuitous.
Luke 14: 28-33 reminds us: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
“Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.”
Unsettled
But our current realities, where life is now stable and better, are leading to dangerous amnesia, as trials and tribulations of the recent past are conveniently forgotten.
Not so long ago, queues, for everything and anything, had become a lifestyle and symptom of general malaise caused by the mental poverty that was afflicting the nation.
You see, where mental poverty becomes pervasive, people fatally embrace the wretched circumstances of their lives as inescapable and ordained.
Phew!
How easily we forget!
We are already taking our relatively present pleasant circumstances for granted.
The Americans have since reconciled themselves to the fact that sanctions, which were widely expected to break us, have largely become moot.
They are now frantically working to repeal ZDERA, not out of sheer magnanimity or an epiphanous Saul-to-Paul moment where the chief tormentor suddenly transfigured into a saviour. For them, this volte-face is conveniently forced by circumstances.
The proposed repeal, contained in the Department of State Policy Provisions Act, a broad foreign policy and national security legislative package that is being sponsored by Representative Brian Mast (Republican) of Florida, has now been officially tabled before the House of Representatives — the lower chamber of the US Congress — marking a major step towards potential debate, amendment and eventual voting on the matter.
For the better part of two decades, ZDERA was wickedly used as a nefarious tool to block Zimbabwe from receiving loans, debt relief or financial assistance from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, locking the country out of key development financing.
One would imagine that scraping the sanctions will allow Washington to regain the narrative by claiming that it also made it possible for Zimbabwe to recover.
But with or without sanctions, Harare could not care less, since, over the years, it has mastered the algebra of abundance under siege and geometry of growth without credit.
Staying the course
Yes, we have walked the hard miles — and more lie ahead.
We can only reach the promised land if we stay the course that has taken us this far.
One of the tragedies of the Zimbabwe’s crisis era was the self-feeding and self-sustaining vicious circle of declining economic growth, high inflation, political instability led by an irritatingly bellicose opposition, foreign interference and strife. And all this has been neutered by a growing economy that has created a virtuous circle of peace and stability.
As Bishop Lazi would say, seek ye the economic kingdom and all things will be added unto you. We have seen how political stability, peace and unity are a catalyst for development.
Conversely, we have seen how damaging rancour and political interference can be.
So, this means our governance architecture and politics should be aligned to the greater aspirations of the people.
We should, therefore, make the right decisions today.
Posterity will remember us for this.
Bishop out!
Bongani Ndlovu