The Sunday Mail
When I was six-years-old, Simon Parkinson and Mark Pozzo had a radio show that my two siblings and I listened to on our way to school.
For a few months they played a very catchy advert that had the recurring chant “Ba-Ba-Barons, Moddick and Topman”.
Like young kids would do, my siblings and I gave each other names adopted from this jingle.
One evening, excited and feeling pretty cool about myself, I approached my mother and declared: “Mhai, inini ndini Bharanzi!”
Perhaps concerned more for her own dignity than mine, she asked how long I had carried this identity.
By that point, I had been skipping around for quite some time letting everybody know that I was a fool — and I let them know with pride! A few decades later, I now know better!
I am even comfortable to share a light-hearted moment with you and laugh about this. However, I am worried that some of us may not have had similar lesson for themselves.
A lesson which informs us that there is such a thing as foolish pride! Unfortunately, when some of us carry this foolish pride, there is very little to laugh about as the effects for the rest of us can be prolonged, undeserved hardship.
A recurring concern of mine has always been the narrative sent out by the huge Grassroots Empowerment Programme tent in front of the City of Harare HQ.
I cannot comprehend how selling imported low quality, second-hand, cheap clothing at the same locations as dozens of other people in uncomfortable surroundings is a flagship for empowerment.
Perhaps my understanding is extremely deficient, because just this week again, banners were erected on newly designated vending sites with the label “Grassroots Empowerment”.
Here is my thing with vending.
Vending barely meets adequate provision for subsistence. Vendors’ incomes are much lower than what is necessary to achieve a descent standard of life.
It would not be a misstatement if I said vendors are poor! Continually getting through such means is not a choice of preference; instead it is being caught in a vicious and hard to escape cycle called a poverty trap.
A poverty trap is a self-reinforcing economic means which causes poverty to persist on an individual or family.
Vending is an activity confined within a poverty trap because it is a livelihood that has little possibility of significant economic advancement. Chances of superseding this very low standard of life are close to nil.
Thus, to openly parade and categorise vending as a means of empowerment is not just a misrepresentation of this ideal altogether, but actually a proud display of encouraging poverty!
I have heard a few misguided policymakers argue that they are creating a space for people to make a living. Surely that is not what empowerment is all about.
Others equally ill-advised argue that people who make reference in a manner such as my current tone are speaking down on vendors, and that vending is a livelihood with dignity and one we should speak to with respect.
This is misplaced concern. It is meant to downplay the low income, low advancement opportunity of vending, but it falls short.
Many of us, including policymakers, have been fortunate to have been served by gardeners and maids who go about their business with dignity and self-respect.
Gardeners and maids earn comparable incomes to those of vendors — actually many vendors would prefer those jobs instead.
However, I am yet to see a politician stand up and promise the electorate more gardening and maid jobs.
Point is, offering dignity and self-respect has never been adequate in an economic context.
Perhaps there is a misconception, or at least an inconsistency, of what empowerment is supposed to be and who it is supposed to be directed towards by respective policies.
Sure, it is encouraging that policymakers have taken to register informal agents and place them at designated operational sites.
This in theory is commendable action towards assimilating the informal economy into more formalised structures — great policy making!
However, by labelling vending sites as empowerment shows a misunderstanding of where such policy should be applied. It would make sense if designated sites were assimilating a different kind of informal activity, such as timber lumbering, motor part repairs, and other skills based value adding activities.
Skills-based value adding activities provide gainful economic opportunity for respective economic agents. In most cases, these are agents challenged in meeting regulatory requirements and lack the capacity to structurally set-up their operations.
By providing locational and registry support, yes, they would be empowered because these informal businesses can grow through the competencies of their agents.
However, the predominant vending in our cities of selling tomatoes, insect repellents, second hand clothing and low cost consumables is not economic activity that can be empowered by locational and registry policy.
In fact, this type of vending activities cannot be empowered at all! It offers little economic opportunity to rise above poverty, and our vending citizens are acting beneath their productivity potential.
To better understand how some informal activities can become empowered while others cannot, we should revert back to the principles of allocation of factors of production. Our citizens are human capital.
Their economic value differs due to each citizen’s competencies, for instance level of skill.
Cognizant of this, clever policy making would commit itself to identifying how to extract the greatest productivity from each citizen.
For example, if a man is literate enough to understand a drilling system composed of rigs, rods, couplers and adapters, he must be productive at the mines. Likewise, if a woman can sew jerseys, she must sew enough to meet demand this winter.
Instead, such men and women are found today vending on our streets.
Astute observers would also understand that by allocating citizens to that which they are most productive, policymakers would be in effect placing citizens where they derive greatest economic return from their competencies.
That is true empowerment.
Understanding this background, as we observe every vending site labelled “Grassroots Empowerment” we should take a second to reflect on foolish pride.
We are parading defining empowerment as availing opportunity for our human capital to act beneath its economic potential, and regrettably in essence, providing a space for them to stay confined in poverty.
