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Dingizulu Mahlathini Moyo
THE so-called nine-point plan penned by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) to help the Government revive agri-business should be read in the same context with the Commercial Farmers Union’s (CFU) recent proposal titled “Way Forward — Proposal — Agriculture and Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe.”
It is interesting in as much as it is revealing, on why it has taken both the CZI and CFU, 13 good years to realise that the land reform is a reality and irreversible. CZI’s stance to contribute “positively” towards the growth of agriculture and the removal of illegal western sanctions would make interesting reading in the field of hypocrisy.
More so it is clear that the sanctions have failed to make the Zimbabwean economy scream as it was anticipated by the architects of the illegal act.
When CZI vice-president Mr Henry Nemaire came out in support of the CFU proposals, Pan-Africanists were reminded of the 1952 great work of Frantz Fanon titled Black Skin, White Masks.
More interestingly the calls by CZI and Mr Nemaire in particular, coincided with a well placed assault on the CFU by a weekly columnist in The Saturday Herald of 19 October, 2013 going by the name Nathaniel Manheru who probed: “Can someone tell me how a country like Zimbabwe continues to have a Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) with no membership, farmers or any unity. Where is the land for these racially exclusive ‘farmers’? Where is their produce? They want to unite with other farming unions, from what, from where?”
The CZI’s nine-point plan to the revival of agri-business is in content a carbon copy of the CFU proposal titled, “Way Forward – Proposal – Agriculture and Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe.”
That being the case, this is neither new nor surprising. In fact, the decision by the CZI to use the recently held Institute of Bankers of Zimbabwe’s 44th Summer Banking School in Nyanga, to sell its proposition, is just but a reminder to President Mugabe and the revolutionary Zanu-PF that Rhodies never die.
It is a reminder to Team Zanu-PF that even though the party could have triumphed with more than two thirds majority in Parliament, the enemy is not relenting, but regrouping.
A closer look at the first two culprits, CFU and CZI, will show you that these cousins come a long way with the elder one, CFU, being 30 years older.
On its website CZI describes itself as, “The apex organisation for industry in Zimbabwe, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry (CZI) has been in existence since 1923… has four regional chamber offices in Mashonaland, Matabeleland, Midlands, and Manicaland, which serve as reference points for industry in international business community.”
1923! There is something interesting about the year 1923 which makes it of great significance to the country’s history. This is the year when a few white settlers, not even reaching 10 000, voted in a referendum to determine whether Rhodesia was to be incorporated into the Union of South Africa or be a stand alone government. Obviously they voted for the latter, resulting in the amalgamation of Mashonaland and Matabeleland into Rhodesia, our present day Zimbabwe — that was the year 1923.
This is the same year CZI was born. It is not a premature, but a well calculated organisation that is to eternally remain a watchdog of the interests of the white settlers. It has continued to play that role to date.
Prior to 1923, in 1892 the white settlers established the Rhodesian Farmers and Land Owners Association. The mid 1920s saw the rise of Matabeleland Farmers Association and Rhodesian Agricultural Union which covered Mashonaland. These two groups were to remain like that until 1943 when they united to form the Rhodesian Farmers Union which later transformed to the present CFU at independence in 1980.
The third culprit in this instance is the Institute of Bankers of Zimbabwe (IOBZ) which was born in 1947, four years after the amalgamation of the two major farming groupings into the Rhodesian Farmers Union.
For nearly eight decades now the trio of CFU, CZI and IOBZ has always worked close together in promoting the interests of the white settlers. These are the same institutions that have, since the 2000 land reform programme, worked towards stifling agricultural growth. The banks have always denied the beneficiaries of the land reform access to funding. Where and when it has been made available, it has always come with stringent conditions.
CZI’s ill-intentions become so apparent as they seek corporate farms or estates previously designated but not acquired, to be delisted and have title deeds restored to strengthen outgrower/contract farming. This is daylight robbery! Why should Caesar surrender what has been brought back to him?
Dingizulu Mahlathini Moyo is a Bulawayo-based political and social commentator
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