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again not matched with any meaningful economic development strategy and is indeed without any financial stability strategy put in place for economic growth in Zimbabwe.
This is a treacherous credit given to a kiya-kiya man practising “lawconomics” that has seen the closure of industries and lowered the standard of living of workers, particularly civil servants.
The credit was given to him primarily for making foolish advances of putting Zimbabwe on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) list, which would have allowed the IMF to manage and interfere with Zimbabwe’s economic affairs.
The coining of the asymmetric praise was to excite Tendai Biti to, through economics, operationalise regime change. Fellow Zimbabweans, a Finance Minister of any country is supposed to drive the economy through being innovative and creative in problem solving and crafting well thought out growth budgets aimed at creating industrial growth and improving the standard of living of the general public.
Hon Tendai Biti will be known in history as the first Finance Minister to fail to finance the productive sector, thus making the multitudes of Zimbabwean working class live below the poverty datum line.
Hon Tendai Biti will also be known as the only finance minister who rubbished Zimbabwe’s economy without offering any credible financial solutions other than calling for the country to be placed on HIPC list.
Supported by the legion of NGOs, civil societies and the West, Hon Tendai Biti went on an over-drive, crafting economic strategies that were in line with the Western illegal economic sanctions that were imposed at the behest of the MDC formations.
Many analysts believe in the assertion that Biti was a Zimbabwean economic saboteur who worked to hurt the economy by ensuring that distressed company funds were red-tape managed to allow closure of companies and large corporates as happened in Bulawayo.
One would have thought Bulawayo, as the MDC stronghold, would have benefited from the distressed company fund in order to improve the working conditions of the workers.
However, Biti chose to please the West, leaving some workers getting retrenched and others receiving deplorable salaries, thereby languishing in poverty.
Political analysts had no kind words for the finance minister’s handling of the distressed company funds.
They clearly stated that Biti sacrificed national interests for his personal foreign recognition by Europe and America. Some said instead of reviving the industrial bases in the MDC urban strongholds, Biti went for cheap politics; making debilitating statements criticising Zimbabwe’s economy while addressing foreign investors. The attack on Zimbabwe’s economy was meant to scare away foreign investors, whom the Finance Minister was supposed to lure to come and invest in Zimbabwe which had established a peaceful and stable political environment by forming a coalition Government.
Some economic analysts failed to understand how the minister was going to revive the economy without adequately funding agriculture, as the mainstay of the economy.
In America, Biti was praised for being the best finance minister in Africa when he unashamedly rubbished Zimbabwe’s economy while addressing American economic think-tanks. The American hypocritical think-tanks only praised Biti to excite him to convince Zimbabwe’s cabinet to allow him to put the country on HIPC. Fortunately, Zanu-PF cabinet ministers would not allow such a reactionary act to happen.
If it was not for the alertness of Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe would have gone to the dogs (the West) as the main menu for dinner. Imagine this being the best Finance Minister in Africa, selling out generational heritage through HIPC doctrine and low funding of the productive sectors. The song for destroying the vibrancy of Zimbabwe’s economy continues to be melodious in honourable Finance Ministers ears as he plays an economic destruction tune. The economic destruction tune is loudly played to catch the ears of the West, who have no shame of maintaining what they undiplomatically term targeted sanctions.
The secretary-general of a faction of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions positively criticised Tendai Biti for refusing to embrace the land reform and the economic empowerment strategies that aim at improving the standard of living of workers.
As a lawyer, Biti must be aware of the importance and impact of social and economic rights on workers’ living standards. No human being can survive on human rights that negate the social and economic rights.
No human being can survive on democracy that only recognises political rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly without embracing social and economic rights.
Zanu-PF’s land reform and indigenous and empowerment acts are aimed at addressing the social and economic imbalances that were created by the colonial settlers. The black empowerment concept is aimed at giving the black majority of Zimbabwe the social and economic rights that the liberation war was fought for.
The social and economic rights are even enshrined in the UN Charter and are said to be good reasons for people to wage a war of liberation. Sadly, the legion of lawyers in the MDC formations led by Tendai Biti and Professor Ncube do not agree with these good legal tenets. One wonders what type of learned lawyers they are and whose legal right they represent.
Fellow Zimbabweans, people must understand that the social and economic rights stalled the progress in the constitution-making process. People like Tendai Biti and Mwonzora where creating problems on how social and economic rights were to be crafted and drafted into the new Constitution.
It was clear that Zanu-PF members in Copac wanted issues to do with the social and economic rights to be well articulated in the Constitution while the MDC formations were for job creation. MDC’s thinking was guided by the doctrine of the “Horse and Rider”.
For 100 years the white man gave an impression that they had established a horse and rider relationship with the blacks of this country.
They believed the black man would agree to be horse and them the riders. This doctrine was forced on blacks who they knew feared reprisal. What it meant was that the black man was, forever, to be ridden by the white man, which is the reason why the war of liberation was fought across Africa.
The MDC formations cannot think of a black man as a rider of a horse; owning his resources hence the bickering on social and economic rights such as land reform and black empowerment. The MDC legal pundits such as Biti, Mwonzora and Prof Ncube do not want Zimbabweans to own their resources and be employers. They regard this as a violation of human rights and an abrogation of the rule of law.
One hopes that MDC supporters now recognise that the closure of companies and the high unemployment rate being experienced in Zimbabwe is largely a result of the illegal economic sanctions imposed at the behest of the MDC formations. People must now be aware that the sanctions were imposed to make them suffer then later make the people dump Zanu-PF for supposedly causing the suffering.
There is a Shona proverb that says “usarasa chawakabata nokuda kuombera chausati waona”.
Since the appointment of Biti as the Finance Minister the majority of workers lost the privilege of negotiating the minimum wage/salary increase that was introduced by Zanu-PF. By voting for the MDC formations, workers voted themselves out of privileges of social and economic rights.
By voting for the MDC formations, workers lost out on Government involvement in salary negotiations and the yearly setting out of minimum wages.
When workers voted for the MDC formations the thinking was Zanu-PF was not empowering workers enough in line with the work they did. But what did they get? They got insincere MDC Ministers of Finance and Labour who continuously are not willing to listen to the concerns of workers. What a tragedy!
Fellow Zimbabweans, people expected as both citizens and workers that after voting the MDC into office, their standard of living would improve. However, their expectations continue to be a dream in a dark room.
The MDC formations; parties born out of labour power politics, have become worse enemies of the workers than was perceived of Zanu-PF.
Panganai Kahuni is a political, socio-economic commentator.
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