Chronicle Editor
Future Chisango
THE desire for devolution is easy to understand in the light of the country’s history. Zimbabwe has always been a centralised state and its governments, both before and after Independence, have been centralised and tended to be authoritarian.
The demand for devolution is probably a reaction to the over-centralisation of the past and the excesses resulting from it. According to scholars, Zimbabwe has always been a centralised economic and political system from its very origin. It started its modern era, not as a country but as a company – Rhodes’ British South Africa Company in 1890 and only becoming a self-ruled country by Rhodesians in 1923.
Since then it maintained a centralised system of administration even during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, an arrangement that was resisted by Malawi and Zambia who fought to devolve their entities.
Now that on March 16, 2013, the majority of Zimbabweans went out in their thousands to cast a yes vote for the new draft constitution, dubbed a people driven constitution since the country’s independence in 1980.
The biggest question which remains unanswered is does the majority of Zimbabweans understand the working definition of devolution and what it entails?
And furthermore does Zimbabwe need devolution at all to address its varied economic challenges?
A simple explanation can be that Zimbabwe has never had a bad constitution, but practicing what was on the constitution is what has been the perennial problem. Meaning even a good constitution in the hands of bad implementers would not yield for the ordinary marginalised Zimbabweans. Research shows that the generality of the populace does not appreciate that the concept of devolution is different from decentralisation. Researchers cite that people must understand that devolution is only a component of the FOUR aspects that make up decentralisation, the other three being de-concentration, delegated power and privatisation.
A de-concentrated economy lacks autonomy from central government as is the case with the District Administrator’s Offices countrywide which take directives from the head office in Harare.
While parastatals like TelOne, Zesa and the National Railways of Zimbabwe exercise delegated power as government is the sole shareholder, under privatisation, the public is allowed to own shares in the entities that have been privatised. Devolution can be defined as, “A transfer of powers from a central government to local units.”
Devolution is viewed as both a political and an economic empowerment process.In a devolved system, the central government transfers authority for decision-making, finance, management and service delivery to quasi-autonomous units of local government that elect their own councils, raise their own revenues, and have independent authority to make investment decisions.
Examples of devolved States are France, Peru, Papua New Guinea, and Spain which has 17 States, the United Kingdom with three, South Africa and Kenya which has got 47 Counties.
Proponents of devolution say some of its merits are that it promotes democratic and accountable exercise of power, fosters national unity and recognises the right of communities to manage their own affairs. This is in contrast with a federal State where powers are centralised resulting in decisions being made on behalf of all regions and their communities. Devolution gives powers of self-governance to the people and enhances participation in the functions of the State.
Another advantage of a devolved State is that it protects and promotes the interests of marginalised communities. In Zimbabwe, some regions have been marginalised and remained disadvantaged for years under the traditional centralised governance system; these would therefore stand to benefit from devolution.
Matabeleland is assumed to be the key advocate of devolution and a recent study shows that people of Matabeleland perceive the region as highly endowed with an adequate natural resource mix which can be able to sustain it economically.
The findings indicated that the people of Matabeleland overwhelmingly supported the adoption of devolution as they perceived it as an effective way to economically develop their region. They however, viewed the region as lacking leaders with the capacity to lead the devolution drive and to deal effectively with economic challenges of the region.
It is imperative to note that although people glorify the innovation Zimbabwe’s economic development is likely going to be affected by the devolution process, especially when one looks at the area of fiscal decentralisation and its consequences.
Under this fiscal decentralisation structure if chaotically implemented Zimbabwe would adopt an, eat in separate kitchens, and eat from separate stoves model of economy as provinces disintegrate. The fiscal decentralisation, mainly targets the abolition of the traditional formula of central to province fiscal transfers hence would result in some sub-national authorities being conferred with the rights to formulate their own budgets and manage their own finances.
The biggest question is; will Zimbabwe’s staggering economy sustain such an asymmetric process of decentralisation which calls for, “allowing substantial economic autonomy to sub-national units, while maintaining a centralised system of political control – and with acceptance of the phenomena that some regions would grow faster than others.
If China’s testimony is anything to go by, this would open the way for personally ambitious officials in provinces and districts to adopt innovative strategies both for promoting local growth and for mobilising the resources in their respective counties.
In consequence, central government does not worry about territorial variation in this perspective. However the upshot is that locally produced goods in one province will hardly be seen in other provinces, as inter-provincial trade would stagnate or fall sharply resulting in minimal or no contribution to the country’s GDP.
When sub-national governments gain great fiscal and decision controls they often ignore the importance of the domestic markets and inter-provincial co-operation in trading.
As the current politicians focus on fragmenting regions through devolution, devolution seems to be becoming the only solution for promoting economic growth, but this could be potentially dangerous and harmful for Zimbabwe’s economy as attracting foreign investment through individual provinces may pose its own new set of challenges.
Zimbabwe would therefore, like always the trend lose by rising competition from other strong contestants in the region who are participating contemporarily in the globalisation of economy such as South Africa who have similar factor endowments.
Bongani Ndlovu