Online Reporter
FOR decades, African parliaments have depended on Treasury allocations augmented by development partners — partners who, more often than not, are former colonial powers whose financial support arrives laden with conditions, expectations and subtle influence. This is not a peculiarity of Zimbabwe; it is the prevailing global model. Yet when Africans themselves step forward to support their own national institutions, the narrative abruptly changes. What is lauded as philanthropy in the West is quickly branded corruption in Africa. It is this contradiction that sits at the centre of the current debate.
Zimbabwe, unlike much of the developing world, is among the few nations that can credibly claim both political and economic independence. That independence has given rise to a class of indigenous companies and entrepreneurs capable of matching — and in some cases exceeding — the financial clout of traditional Western donors. Their participation in national development should be recognised as progress, not treated as a transgression.
The recent furore surrounding businessman Wicknell Chivayo’s offer to fund parliamentary programmes, including the Constituency Development Fund, sharply exposes this double standard. Some critics seem trapped in an outdated worldview where only Western actors may legitimately assume the role of donors while Africans are relegated to permanent recipients. Yet there is nothing unconstitutional about a Zimbabwean citizen helping to fund national initiatives, nor is there anything inherently scandalous about a businessman choosing to support the developmental direction of his country. Chivayo holds no party office; he is a private citizen exercising his right to deploy his resources as he sees fit — not differently from global business figures such as Elon Musk operating within their own jurisdictions.
To cast his actions as scandalous is, at best, mischievous and uninformed, and at worst, a calculated attempt to politicise what is otherwise a lawful act of philanthropy.
The same misplaced outrage has been directed at Zanu-PF Mashonaland West Chairlady Mary Mliswa for mobilising party members to submit written support for Bill 3. Yet Bill 3 is a party resolution, and Parliament’s public consultation process explicitly invites written submissions. Approaching the process with the discipline and organisation of an election is not only rational but essential. No serious political organisation leaves outcomes to chance. If anything, provinces that failed to mobilise in the manner demonstrated by Mashonaland West are guilty of neglecting their organisational responsibilities.
Agenda-setting must be rooted locally, not outsourced. Zimbabwe’s independence confers not only the right but the obligation on Zimbabweans — individuals, companies and political institutions alike — to shape the nation’s future.
To denounce domestic participation while embracing external influence is to invert the very gains of independence.
In the final analysis, the true scandal is neither Chivayo’s donation nor Mliswa’s mobilisation. It is the persistence of a mindset that instinctively places greater trust in outsiders than in Zimbabweans themselves.
O Gutu.
