‘If everyone shared, swallowed their pride’

My Turn with Tichaona Zindoga
“If everyone cared and nobody cried/If everyone loved and nobody lied; If everyone shared and swallowed their pride/Then we’d see the day when nobody died…”These lines, very moralistic and even sad as they are, hardly make for a love song, a good one.
However, the song from which the lines are culled is a perfect love number as the man tells us about “watch(ing) the sky/Confusing stars for satellites/I never dreamed that you’d be mine/But here we are, we’re here tonight.”

One cannot deny the universality of meaning, humanity and applicability in the opening lines above, little wonder that Nickleback, the Canadian rock group that did the song, announced that 100 percent of all digital sales for the song would be donated to the charities of Amnesty International, and the International Children’s Awareness Canada.

The lines speak to some characteristics that should define the human race: compassion, empathy and humility.

Unfortunately, all these qualities are in short supply in the human kingdom as the vile and base characteristics take charge.

Think of the hate and pride.

Think of the lies.

The greed.

Greed distresses me like many people of goodwill.

Greed is not in short supply in Zimbabwe and that is why we hear endless stories of corruption and sleaze.

Because of greed, the country’s resources and other means of production benefit a few individuals.

There is a word for them in town. They are referred to as “fat cats”.

They should be happy cats, indeed, in their often evil lucre.

These are reflections coming from the story that was carried in yesterday’s edition of The Herald in which a preliminary audit of the land reform programme reveals that children as young as 10 years benefited.

That was to the detriment of deserving people both in terms of the law which requires that the beneficiaries should meet set criteria including an age threshold of 21 years age; and the fact that the other applicants were genuinely land-hungry.

The 10-year-olds ended up crowding out genuine land seekers because, most probably, their parents thought it would be a good idea to have one more farm than they already had.

Possibly, these are people that already had a couple of farms, some of which they underutilised.

It is a safe bet that no one was really shocked reading the story yesterday.

We all expect that of our base selves, don’t we?

There are other stories, since Willowgate, that have shaken the nation more — shaken it to numbness.

By the way, early this year, a newspaper in Masvingo reported a case similar to the one of 10-year-olds getting land.

Here is the very graphic report by the Masvingo Mirror:

“…shocking revelations from an audit report released by Masvingo City Council this week shows that X (name withheld because of age), the son of former Ward 9 Councillor Misheck Gapare born on January 16 2002, was allocated a stand in 2008 by the then Director of Housing and Community Services Vandirai.

“X went onto the waiting list when he was just five years old in November 2007 but his waiting list number could not be traced into the official waiting list register, according to audit documents in the hands of The Mirror.

“The audit condemns the whole transaction as fraudulent as X did not have official records from the courts authorising his parents to act on his behalf.

“The audit also said a minor cannot get onto the waiting list and get a lodger’s card because the requirement was for one to have a national identity which a minor could not get.

“The waiting list conditions also dictate that one shows proof of gainful employment or otherwise for council to be satisfied that one has the capacity to develop a stand.”
Interestingly, the paper narrates, the minor went on to pay water and sewer connection fees for the stand without having paid a cent for the stand itself.

That sounds like a script read from the tale of Willowvale Flats Phase II, in Harare, where similar practices were unearthed.

In 2012, an investigation by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on National Housing and Public Works revealed that on the list of those awarded flats at Willowvale Phase II were children born in July that year, one born in 2003 and another in 1998.

According to reports at the time, the list of recipients was full of inconsistencies with some details missing such as surnames, identification numbers while, in some cases, departments are listed instead of the actual ministries where the beneficiaries work.

Such inconsistencies and anomalies were not accidental.

By the way, the new Willowvale flats were meant for the poor within the civil service, who by the looks of it could not afforded them after all.

Poor people may be content seeing the flats as they pass by in public vehicles to and from suburbs such as Glen Norah, Glen View and Budiriro where they live in crowded conditions.

By now they must have understood, given the kind of cars that are seen parked at the flats, that poor people could scarcely have deserved the estate, after all.

Other stories tell us about how ill-deserving the poor people are of schemes that we are told should benefit them.

Some headmasters and teachers have been stuffing the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), a facility for the poor, marginalised and orphaned children, with their relatives and children.

Some callous school heads have even spent the money meant for these poor souls.

A similar tale goes for the Presidential Scholarship Programme, which was meant for the poor and marginalied but ended up full of relatives, sons and daughters of rich officials.

The rural folk, the orphans and the vulnerable can go to hell.

As should the not-so-connected youths, supposed beneficiaries of the Youth Fund for economic empowerment.

Ditto for rural farmers, supposed beneficiaries of Government farm input schemes.

Deserving cadres, some of whom were injured during the liberation struggle, lost out as some people of no scruples latched onto the monies.

We are told some 23-year-olds were among war fund claimants when they should have been toddlers when the war of liberation ended out.

The real cripples couldn’t write, let alone access the money.

They died.

Some of us are responsible for their deaths because we did not care.

We were greedy and could not share.

Lucky are the sons and daughters of the powerful who can get farms at 10 years.

And will they learn virtues of caring, sharing, loving and swallowing their pride?

They probably won’t.