adminThis week’s Zhuwao Brief borrows from Thursday’s The Herald article by Reason Wafawarova titled “Addressing Africa’s failings”.
We will locate the leadership theme of that article within the context of a specific request I received from Mrs Martha Ruzive as I drove to Johannesburg with two friends and business partners.
One of my friends indicated we needed to stop in Masvingo and have a meal at his sekuru’s house.
As we were introduced to my friend’s sekuru and ambuya, Sekuru Ruzive commented that he still had Zanu-PF election regalia from the historic Independence election campaign of 1980.
This is a family that is truly Zanu-PF to the core. Ambuya Ruzive lauded Honourable Saviour Kasukuwere’s appointment to the Local Government Ministry.
She requested me to convey to Hon Kasukuwere her concerns that the Masvingo municipality still owed her salary arrears despite retiring two years ago.
She lamented the fact that some of her former colleagues had passed on without having been paid their dues.
On the face of it, Ambuya Ruzive’s request was a simple task of delivering a message.
The message holds a more profound significance. Whilst the minister responsible for local authorities does not have direct responsibility for Masvingo municipality’s salary arrears, he superintends over the local government sector.
For her, Hon Kasukuwere needs to intervene in a manner that restores justice.
But how can the minister make a meaningful intervention without violating the principle of devolved responsibility that he announced soon after being appointed to the portfolio?
Kasukuwere reminded the City of Harare that council must address the issue and not him as the minister.
His role is to ensure that councillors fulfil their legislatively provided mandates.
This is a perspective on governance and leadership that places responsibility appropriately as mandated through local authority elections. But nonetheless, Kasukuwere is required to provide leadership for the local government sector. He is required to work with local authorities to ensure they fulfil their legislative requirement to develop and uphold by-laws, as well as provide services residents require. Local authorities must also provide ethical leadership by honouring commitments like salaries and wages.
For local authorities to fulfil their mandate, they must be financial secure and stable. They must collect revenues from residents in return for services rendered.
However, residents are experiencing financial distress and are struggling to keep up with their rates. For Mrs Ruzive to pay her rates, she needs to have been paid her salary arrears.
For Masvingo municipality to pay Mrs Ruzive’s salary arrears, it needs to have been paid outstanding rates by residents and ratepayers. We have a catch-22 situation and this appears to be the problematic of the Zimbabwean local authority scenario.
As I sat in Mr and Mrs Ruzive house in Mucheke digesting the implications of the message I had been tasked to convey, I started to speculate how Kasukuwere should facilitate Masvingo municipality to honour its obligations so that residents in turn meet their rates commitments.
The Zhuwao Brief has previously suggested that densification could be a strategy that not only delivers additional housing floor space but does that on the back of already existing infrastructure such as the road, water and sewerage networks, albeit at increased capacities.
Densification of Mr and Mrs Ruzive’s house in Mucheke by building an additional floor upstairs would also provide rental incomes for this retired couple.
However, such ideas need to be operationalised. It is my view that the interrogation and subsequent operationalisation of such ideas should be conducted by the Local Government Minister.
The minister needs to take a helicopter view of local authority issues and governance without interfering unduly in operations. The minister’s role is to provide strategic direction.
Hon Kasukuwere started on the correct foot when he indicated that management of space was the city council’s responsibility.
For the Zhuwao Brief, the minister provided hope that the challenges of local authorities could be addressed. Unfortunately, that hope was dashed as we got wind of the altercation between Hon Kasukuwere and Hon Wadyajena. Media reports focused on what appeared to be an altercation based on personalities as opposed to issues of substance.
Unfortunately, I also noticed that the altercation has been transferred to the social media scene with slogans such as “Pasi neG40” being bandied around in apparent reference to Hon Kasukuwere. Some of the comments on social media were not only abusive and offensive but were also inferring moral and sexual impropriety without providing evidence.
The altercation appears to be taking a decidedly personal tone and that is not good.
The Zhuwao Brief is concerned that the actions which elected leaders take in their official capacities could be transferred to the personal realm with concomitant impact on not only the lives of the said leaders but also on their family members who would be innocent bystanders.
The net effect of this would result in leaders taking a cautious approach to issues rather than be innovative in searching for solutions.
In Hon Kasukuwere’s case, focus would also be diverted from the responsibility that he has of delivering service by superintending over local authorities.
Furthermore, Kasukuwere is Zanu-PF’s Commissar whose responsibility is ensuring the ruling party’s structures are operational.
Diversion of his attention to a contest that has decidedly personal overtones would ensure that he has less time to address his duties.
Is this what the Zanu-PF’s leadership wants? Can Zanu-PF’s senior leadership stand by and observe party legislators tear each other apart? Do Zanu-PF members of long-standing like Mr and Mrs Ruzive deserve such? To what end?
The Zhuwao Brief suggests that we can get some clues as to why Zanu-PF’s leadership behaves so badly by interrogating Reason Wafawarova submissions that the challenges we have in Africa are surmountable for as long as our leadership do the correct things.
He argues that Africans are trapped between bureaucracy and mismanagement and that “our political leadership often finds between these two, an unabated sanctuary that they believe is beyond the reach of the public”. Wafawarova suggests that our leadership should desist from grandstanding and focus on real issues of empowerment.
I wish to add to Wafawarova’s analysis.
Some of our less clever political leadership have chosen to hide their incompetence and incapacity by organising and engineering attacks on their colleagues.
Mukaona mukuru anotsigira ruzha, ibvayi maziva kuti mukuru iyeye haana pundutso.
The strategy of attacking fellow leaders seeks two things: firstly, tarnishing the images of these perceived high performers, and hence casting doubts on their performance; secondly, dullards hope to derail the performance of perceived high performers by focussing attention away from further delivery and onto defending themselves personally.
In summary, the Zhuwao Brief commends Hon Kasukuwere for correctly locating the resolution of the vendors issue within the local authorities and thus restoring the appropriate mechanisms for local authority governance.
However, I wish to also advise and urge Hon Kasukuwere to resist being drawn into personal contestations in spite of whatever provocation he may feel he has been subjected to. He should not worry about being witch hunted because it is only those who have nothing to offer and deliver who focus on finding fault.
It would be remiss of the Zhuwao Brief to fail to deliver Mrs Ruzive’s message to Hon Kasukuwere. Masvingo municipality must pay what it owes to all. Local authorities require that rates be paid in sufficient values so they make good their obligations and commitments.
Hon Kasukuwere should, nay must, focus on assisting local authorities to develop mechanisms and structures that enable ratepayers to create additional value and thus be in a position to pay their rates.
Tyson has demonstrated his capacity to develop structures and mechanism for delivering policy with the concepts of the community and employee share ownership schemes, and the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Unfortunately, Zimbabwe has lost US$1,843 million worth of value by failing to consummate deals of US$971 million at Zimplats, US$550 million at Mimosa, US$242 million at Unki and US$80 at Blanket Mine.
We should focus on getting that value back.
The Zhuwao Brief concludes by quoting Bob Marley’s song, “Positive Vibrations”.
“If you get down and you quarrel every day, You’re saying prayers to the devil I say, Why not help one another on the way, Make it much easier. Just a little bit easier.
“Say you just can’t live that negative way. Make way for the positive day. Cause it’s a new day, new time, and it’s a new feeling. Said it’s a new sign, oh what a new day.”
Patrick Zhuwao is chair of the Zhuwao Institute, an economics, development and research think tank focused on integrating socio-political dimensions into business and economic decision-making, particularly strategic planning. He can be reached at [email protected]
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