dyton mupawaenda
Tomorrow is SADC Anti-Sanctions Day and we need to take it at least as seriously as our neighbours, and they are taking it very seriously indeed because this is probably our best bet to get those who impose sanctions to think more seriously about just what they are doing.
The reason our neighbours are so keen to see Zimbabwe freed from the yoke of the largely financial and banking sanctions is not just because they dislike having a good neighbour messed around. The sanctions affect them as well in a wide range of serious ways.
For a start there is the regional infrastructure. Our energy sources, road networks, rail networks and communications networks are solidly linked, and while Zimbabwe might be a modest sized country it is right there in the middle of SADC and a great deal of intra-SADC trade has to pass through Zimbabwe.
Already the rebuilding of the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare road has made a major difference to those who need to move goods between South Africa and the large block of countries to our north. And once the northern stretch from Harare to Chirundu is of the same standard, the major north-south road corridor through Zimbabwe will be a godsend to the truck owners who have to do the transport of the rapidly growing trade.
First they will be able to move south and north at a steady pace, making scheduling easier, secondly there will be fewer delays and time is money in that business, and thirdly they will not have replacement suspension parts readily available.
Zimbabwe is doing this work with its own resources, as well as the urgent work on the Beitbridge-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway, but it would have gone quicker if Zimbabwe had been able to tap into the global finance markets for low-interest concessionary loans, solidly backed by the toll gates and the fees the truckers pay as they cross the border so those loans could be paid back quickly.
The southern African rail system is not in the best shape, and while each national rail system needs to work on its own sections they need to do so in ways that also properly connect the region, and connect the region to the ports and the wider world.
The colonialists were not dummies when they put in the railway network, all working together to get what they needed: a major north-south trunk line with a fair number of side lines to the ports, mainly the east coast ports, but the line from the copper belt of Zambia and Katanga through Angola to the port of Benguela was a major achievement.
Plans for the trans-Kalahari line running through northern Botswana and linking with the Namibian central line and leading to Walvis Bay have been on the drawing boards for decades.
A major upgrade of the whole regional network will need a lot of money, and while the rail tariffs can pay off capital borrowings, if there is decent concessionary finance, it does not need a Zimbabwean-shaped hole in the middle of the network, or some very expensive borrowing to shove up the rail charges.
In fact a revamp of the rail-network would be able to tap the “green money” starting to become available to reduce carbon footprints, since rail is very efficient and has a much smaller carbon footprint per tonne moved.
Although Zambia and Mozambique have some power surpluses, the region is struggling just to meet present demand, and that demand is growing as everyone pushes economic growth and social growth, the social growth meaning connecting everyone to electric power with their own lifestyles needing more.
A fridge and electric cooker in every home, for example, will need more power. That needs more power stations, and more grid, and again the central point is Zimbabwe.
A second reason for the neighbourly concern is the need to expand markets for industry, agriculture and mining. More people earning more money creates a huge market but again, as the AfCFTA becomes a reality and border taxes are just VAT the advantages go to those with the shortest delivery routes, so direct neighbours are the most obvious new markets.
Zimbabwean industrialists are in the same boat as those in Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa.
We all need to build our brands and get our stuff on everyone’s shelves, and as we grow richer together we grow richer faster. Zimbabwe has done well under the Second Republic with the fastest economic growth in the region, but some of this was making up for past losses and we all need to be connected through our banks to maintain the growth and the growth in our neighbours.
As our economies continue to grow together we are going to find just about every manufacturer in the region will have at least some suppliers and sub-contractors next door, and the last thing they need is to find they are being hit by sanctions because a major sub-assembly comes from Zimbabwe, or the Zimbabwean manufacturer cannot move their money easily through the banking system to pay bills because of some American banking rule.
While technically trade is not directly sanctioned, it is in practical terms through the banking sanctions.
Trade requires that payments move swiftly, simply, cheaply and easily through the global banking system, and if there are long delays because banks cannot deal with payments to and from Zimbabwe without a vast range of expensive checks, then regional trade is hit.
The point our neighbours keep making, and between them they are able to stress this at the highest levels, is that the sanctions are not targeted.
We are not taking about a few Zimbabweans: we are talking about all Zimbabweans and talking about all in Southern Africa to some degree and a rising degree.
The third strand of our neighbours’ arguments is that the politics in the region are not really anyone’s business outside the region, and the region itself has ways of dealing with them.
For example we all now monitor each other’s elections, and pass on our thoughts and findings so that each country can smoothen administrative hassles.
Shortly the new SADC report on the Zimbabwean polls, the latest in the region, comes out and will have some good ideas of we, and everyone else learning from our polls, can make things better.
Zimbabweans have some good ideas, with probably a ballot printing deadline number one on almost every list, but there will be other good ideas.
We can all learn from each other and we do not need outsiders dictating to us, especially when they say that polls must be rigged to ensure the opposition always wins, something they would all find daft in their own countries when they stand for re-election.
So tomorrow we need to thank our neighbours for their substantial support, back them where we can, and continue our own efforts with united backing. We need to do this nationally as well.
Some opposition politicians are vocal in opposition to sanctions, pointing out that trying to cripple the country helps no one, and certainly not themselves. The rest need to come on board, and then contest where it matters, how best do we move forward and with what policies.
Online Reporter