We need holy war against lazy, useless bureaucrats

THOSE familiar with the unchanging script of real-life political drama knew that Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s bromance was fated to end in a screeching, dramatic and public spat.

To the unlearned eye, this was a match made in heaven; a perfect union between two quintessential businessmen who had found a home in politics in the most eventful of ways.

For Bishop Lazi, the one thing that would inexorably sink their seemingly formidable partnership was their outsized egos.

Village wisdom has long taught our people that there can only be one bull in a kraal.

We also know that roosters will never crow side by side.

It was inevitable that the marriage of convenience between these two maverick and unabashed egotists would only last for as long as their mutual interests held, which was certainly not for long.

Being the ambitious businessman that he is, Musk knew that having the ear of the most powerful politician on earth would guarantee him eye-watering contracts with the United States government and give him leverage to expand his businesses around the world.

We all saw how he leaned on Trump to violently arm-twist the South African government into licensing his satellite internet business, Starlink, as Pretoria steadfastly insisted that, as a foreign business, it had to sell a 30 percent stake to locals, in line with the country’s laws.

For Trump, Musk, in addition to funding his successful political campaign, came with an army of tech-savvy youthies that are crucial in the life of any contemporary politician worth their salt.

This is precisely the reason Trump’s political campaign in the lead-up to the watershed November 2024 elections eschewed traditional media platforms, which were naturally anti-Trump, and found wings in new media platforms, such as podcasts, that commanded the attention of millions of Americans.

This provided the crucial votes that tilted the race for the most powerful job on earth in Trump’s favour.

According to Shona wisdom, matsotsi haagerani, which, loosely translated, means you cannot style the stylist.

Well, these two American stylists — Trump and Musk — tried to style each other and it unsurprisingly ended in tears.

The way this short-lived relationship unravelled was quite a spectacle, with Musk using his platform, X, to bash Trump, while the latter returned the favour through his own platform, Truth Social.

Hearing Trump threatening to unleash DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) on its creator, Musk, was the height of this spectacular political drama and comedy. Kikikiki.

Bureaucratic sloth

Musk’s unpaid stint in government might have been as short as Jacob Mafume, but it was surely long enough for him to intolerably ruffle feathers in departments and agencies in Washington through his pet project, DOGE.

One of his actions — instructing DOGE to send federal workers emails for them to list things they had done the week before — irked many.

It was born out of the presumption that far too many federal workers, some of whom were alleged to be not reporting for work, were being paid for doing nothing.

It was a waste that Musk wanted to eliminate by sending the useless bureaucrats out to pasture.

As unorthodox and inappropriate Musk’s actions might have been, they were, however, motivated by the belief that, more often than not, bureaucrats are an impediment, rather than an enabler, of efficiency.

A much more ruthless crusader of this philosophy is none other than Musk’s bosom buddy, Javier Milei, the maverick president of Argentina, who considers himself an “anarcho-capitalist”, as he believes that government’s role must be minimised to eliminate inefficiencies in the market.

It might sound strange, but he hates the idea of government with a passion.

He once famously said: “The state is the paedophile in the kindergarten, with the children chained up and slathered in Vaseline.” Kikikiki.

Well, Milei is not quite the person some would consider the model politician, what with his eyebrow-raising idiosyncrasies. This is a guy who wears his hair with an unkempt shag with disco sideburns.

This is a guy who owns four cloned English mastiffs, each named after a renowned economist — Murray, after Murray Rothbard; Milton (Milton Friedman); Robert (Robert Lucas); and Lucas (again after Robert Lucas).

Make of him and his thoughts what you will but the bottom line is, he, just like Musk, does not believe in inefficient government.

The Chinese model might be antithetical to one posited by Milei and Musk, but it is thoroughly efficient, as it is driven by a well-oiled mean bureaucratic machine that is results oriented.

Bane of little gods in Government

Maybe it is the legacy of our rote-learning education system that was designed to create bureaucrats rather than innovators and problem-solvers, but we still have the bane of “little gods idly sitting in public offices”, not least in Local Government.

While our once-pristine roads continue to melt away to give way to dusty rugged gravel, our traffic and streetlights remain in a state of disrepair, our taps run dry and our environs are buried in garbage, we have a whole army of Harare City Council workers — from top executives to the hoi polloi — who religiously wake up in the morning to go for an 8am to 5pm job where they do God knows what.

Just know that for each service that is unfulfilled, there is a whole bureaucracy of salaried public servants that clog our roads in rush-hour traffic to report for “work”.

Bishop Lazi would like to know what would be going through the head of the head of the City of Harare’s Department of Works when he daily blissfully glides over the capital’s potholes on his way to work.

What does his day’s work entail?

Does he not feel ashamed to draw those obscene salaries and perks for not doing jack?

Nxa!

Proverbs 6:6-11 says: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.”

2 Thessalonians 3:10–13 adds: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’ We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.”

War

When he was sworn in on November 24, 2017, President Mnangagwa was quite emphatic about the new culture that is demanded for us to achieve the prosperous life that we all need and deserve.

“As we focus on recovering our economy, we must shed misbehaviours and acts of indiscipline which have characterised the past,” he said.

“We have to aspire to be a clean nation, one sworn to high moral standards and deserved rewards . . . To our civil servants, it cannot be business as usual. You now have to roll up your sleeves in readiness to deliver.  We have an economy to recover, a people to serve.

“Each and every one of us must now earn their hour, day, week and month at work. Gone are the days of absenteeism and desultory application, days of unduly delaying and forestalling decisions and services in the hope of extorting dirty rewards. That will have to stop . . . The culture in Government just has to change, unseating those little “gods” idly sitting in public offices, for a busy, empathetic civil service that Zimbabwe surely deserves.”

As we journey towards Vision 2030, complacency and falling back to old habits can be expected, but the time has come to reorient the national psyche to focus — nay, obsess — on the lofty goals that we are pursuing.

You have to listen to ED’s clarion call in the past four weeks to avoid losing sight of our ultimate goal.

We cannot afford to regress, but first we have to declare war against the lazy, useless bureaucrats.

If they cannot change and deliver, they should not last any second longer in those offices.

Let us leave Zimbabwe better than we found it.

Bishop out!