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Martin Stobart
AS would be expected when government unveils an economic blueprint, comments follow thick and fast as if the sluice gates have been drawn up. Such was the case when Zanu-PF released its ZimAsset document onto the public domain. Before its release comment was sparse at best or guarded at worst. There are times when some commentators gave us the impression that the ZimAsset development blueprint was some kind of a creature from outer space.
The fact that it is a Zanu-PF development programme exposed ZimAsset to incessant pummelling as if to render it still-born. Those commentators with a propensity to indulge in intellectual sesquipedalismpainted the town red so that at the end of it all some of us did not understand their contributions, which is just as well . . . the little or the less we understand allowed for a better understanding of ZimAsset than getting confused in the density of intellectual outpourings.
I personally understand the ZimAsset version as explicated by playwright Cont Mhlanga in Chronicle. ZimAsset is not some kind of panacea or alchemy or a cure all for the economy of Zimbabwe.
In fact I have heard it said in some quarters that ZimAsset is not “deep enough” whatever that means! Contrariwise, I find it very basic as it tells us which Ministry is mandated to carry out what programme/s and what’s fabulous is it tells us also the ministerial overlaps as well as the proportional burden of responsibility between ministries where there is an overlap of responsibilities, so that in the final analysis we are able to apportion “blame” for want of a more attributive term. I say this because all too often we tend to descend on ministries, or ministers for that matter, using sweeping incentives disregarding the impact, both positive and negative, of joint responsibilities between the two (and in some cases between more than two) ministries. Usually an overlap or joint responsibility of one ministry into the operational domain of another entails an excision or reduction in budgetary allocation of the two ministries. ZimAsset is not a treatise or an academic document but a guide for development in a very simplified form.
One other salient feature of ZimAsset is prioritisation plus quick fixes (we can call them stop-gap measures). I understand those who contend that ZimAsset lacks depth. But understanding in no way implies concurrence. When we have analysed the pros and cons of ZimAsset we then must take full cognisance of the human factor, a perspective which Cont Mhlanga ably dwelt on in a no-hands-barred fashion in his article. Get yourself a spanking brand new vehicle yet unless you drive it, it won’t move: worse, if you are a reckless driver you will prang it with the possibility of killing yourself (not to mention collateral casualties or even fatalities).
ZimAsset requires people, I mean managers, and not excluding ministers, who are committed performers. The blueprint is not like a horse which you can straddle and kick it and off he gallops away. It demands hard work. In order for ZimAsset to fruitify, CORRUPTION just has to go and the day before yesterday. Corruption is very repercussive and pervasive.
The reason why it is difficult to extirpate is that it originates at the top, while its fight is relegated to the lower levels of society where it does not thrive even if it exists. We cannot begin to fight the scourge of corruption if we do not tackle it at source. The question is, how do we do that if we are barred from reaching the top where the practice exists?
If we look at ZimAsset through the prism of corruption one is forgiven for concluding that the programme won’t succeed not only in the course of its projected five-year span of life but for all time to come. This writer can testify with irrefutable evidence that in our beloved country corruption has not only cascaded down to the lower strata of the population, but has actually been woven into a tapestry involving the top and the bottom strata.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been under economic siege for 13 years now. The political leadership has in spite of the excruciating sanctions fought gallantly to mimimise the negative impact of these sanctions on the national economy as well as to ameliorate the suffering of the people whom I might call the victims of the international sanctions. And yet, comparatively, the country is facing another kind of self-inflicted, or internally imposed sanctions: corruption.
Corruption is going to render ZimAsset ineffectual for the simple reason that it starts from the penthouses and attics of both political and economic power cascading down to the lower echelons of society as already cited above. In Ndebele there is a time-worn adage that when a dog gnaws at a bone in a neighbourhood he is sure to go back again for more and as long as there is a bone to be found the dog will make the neighbourhood his favourite haunt, with the likelihood that he might end up guarding the neighbour’s home instead of his master’s.
Corrupt people at the upper crust of society and community will always suck in certain people in the communities who are that way inclined, or are innocently vulnerable and malleable. These are imposed on the communities as “leaders” even though they are known cattle rustlers and notorious cheats. For ZimAsset to yield good results there is great need this time around to zero in on the issue of sanctions of corruption.
The President, Cde Robert Mugabe, has made the Presidency the epicentre and fulcrum of the anti-corruption operations. This demonstrates his concern about the scourge of corruption and its ravages on the national economy. The government should not rely on the Anti-Corruption Commission but should work parallel with it so as to cast the nets comprehensively wider. After all, the Commission is said to have no legal canines.
There are ministers who are known to have abused their power by giving community projects to their friends for personal gain. There are ministers and permanent secretaries who assign several portfolios to one person as if there are no other qualified persons in the communities. These are the sort of sanctions that are stifling and impending development in our country.
Members of the communities who are in the bosom of Ministers and politicians will always run to these people when they feel or sense that their nefarious activities are in danger of being discovered. They cry foul about the “opposition” in order to elicit protection.
If you claim to be the chairperson of Zanu-PF in the district or in the province surely you should be able to handle the opposition yourself. If ZimAsset is to deliver on its stated goals the masses (not in the pejorative sense) have to be an integral component because the programme is designed to deliver for the populace and not for individuals.
With regard to corruption some of us are ready to expose those who are corrupt regardless of their station in society or their political status. Corruption is more damaging to the economy than the Western sanctions. And that is the truth, the whole truth. The government has to take the population on board in its fight against corruption and stop relying entirely on cabinet ministered and politicians. Is it taboo for the government to include the povo in these commissions? To all intents and purposes these commissions are elite clubs. They never really come to where we are.
I recall not so long Zanu-PF Parliamentary chief whip Dr Jorum Gumbo saying that there is corruption even in the commissions themselves. It’s a case of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes’(who shall guard over the guards themselves.) Only the populace can! Corruption is the cancer of society and if its tumor is not removed at the benign stage it becomes malignant and terminal. As an additional (and painful) way of combating institutions corruption the South African government had, or still has, a law which empowers the State to expropriate property that is deemed to have been acquired by fraudulent means.
Zimbabwe needs that kind of law pretty urgently.
Online Reporter