ZHUWAO: Bad leaders must be kicked out – now!

23 Nov, 2014 - 05:11 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

There is need for the Central Committee to be monitored regularly by National Peoples’ Conference on behalf of Congress since the Central Committee acts on behalf of Congress

For implementation of Zim-Asset to be accelerated, non-performing ministers and Zanu-PF Politburo members must be fired.

On November 17, 2014, students and graduates of the National Youth Service called for replacement of their respective ministers when they met First Lady Amai Dr Grace Mugabe in Mazowe.

Do these calls have merit? Have these ministers failed to deliver on their mandates? On what basis should they be replaced? Are they not the subject of frivolous and vexatious treatment?

This article does not seek to interrogate the merits of the appeal, nor the competences of the affected ministers.

Rather, it seeks to propose strengthening the framework for enhancing, within Zanu-PF, the performance culture envisaged in the Results Based Management approach as enshrined in Zim-Asset.

Such a culture should improve the performance of our elected and appointed officials.

However, should such improvements not be forthcoming, it would be necessary to replace those failing officials. Such processes would need to be conducted in a professional and transparent manner.

I will start off by highlighting the possibility that some processes for performance monitoring could be high-jacked by a creature that I refer to as the speculative political entrepreneur (SPE), and how this motivates for institutionalising a performance culture.

I will then highlight how the principal organs of Zanu-PF constitute a performance management system whose ultimate process involves the National People’s Congress.

I will conclude by submitting that Zanu-PF’s principal organs and structures should be focussed on enhancing the performance of elected and appointed officials.

As a result, implementation of Zim-Asset can be accelerated through enhancing the performance of Zanu-PF officials, including ministers, and Politburo and Central Committee members.

The Speculative Political Entrepreneur

The past few weeks have seen a massive shakeup in Zanu-PF with several senior officials being ousted because their colleagues have lost confidence in their ability to conduct their work.

In the majority of cases, these actions have been justified.

However, there is a danger that the provision of the vote of no confidence, as enshrined in Article 29 (General Provisions) Section 251, can be abused by a creature that I refer to as the speculative political entrepreneur (SPE).

An SPE is a commercial and business-oriented individual who seeks to abuse access to political influence for personal and individual commercial and business benefits irrespective of the political and/or ideological damage that they inflict.

An SPE is ideologically bankrupt, and devoid of ethics, morality and decency.

One such SPE emerged in the 1990s and was able to secure a government guarantee to buy a mining house. He was even offered a very senior position within one of Zanu-PF’s Provincial Executive committees and he declined.

Around 2002, the SPE created a dubious agricultural company whose modus operandum included reinstalling evicted white farmers under the guise of engaging them as consultants.

The SPE was actually working against the tenets of the Land Reform Programme

The SPE’s agricultural company even went as far as accessing Z$5 billion dollars out of a Z$7 billion facility created for A2 farmers.

During a meeting of the Zanu-PF National Youth Assembly in 2003, I was tasked by the Youth League National Executive to make a presentation to President Mugabe on the dangers that the SPE’s agricultural company posed to the Land Reform Programme and the empowerment of black indigenous farmers.

I am tempted to speculate that this particular SPE’s perceived strong links to a senior Zanu-PF official might have led to a decline in the said official’s fortunes. By association, the said ZANU PF official could have had his commitment to the total liberation project questioned.

Mukuru uyo akadziya moto wembavha!

The SPE was so politically bereft that he made the mistake of endorsing Tsvangirai during the 2013 elections. What a shame!

Another SPE also emerged in the mid-2000s. Again, this SPE abused access to political influence to bully the business community and went on an acquisition spree.

As with the first SPE, this SPE also attracted the attention of white monopoly capital and sought to derail and destabilise the indigenisation programme.

During an era where we should have seen indigenous businesses grow, we saw white monopoly capital strengthening its grip on the retail and food sectors with the assistance of this second SPE.

The mining sector was also targeted by white monopoly capital, and in particular the diamond sub-sector. Zimbabwe has had to contend with trumped up charges under cover of the Kimberley process, as well as having diamond sales proceeds being high-jacked.

All this has occurred with the assistance of this second major national SPE.

As the Mazowe Crush movement is gaining currency across Zimbabwe, it is imperative that Zanu-PF institutes mechanisms that will thwart the emergence of a possible third major national SPE.

It is very possible that such a third SPE could use the traction of the “vote of no confidence” phenomenon to bully and threaten ministers and officials into submitting to his/her own personal and individual commercial and business interests.

Consequently, it is important that Zanu-PF establishes a framework for objectively reviewing performance of its elected and appointed officials.

The principal organs and structures of Zanu-PF have an inherent performance management mechanism. The conscious application of a performance management approach can form the basis of not only a performance management system, but a performance improvement mechanism for accelerating implementation of Zim-Asset.

Zanu-PF’s Performance Management System

Article 4 of the Zanu-PF Constitution lists 12 principal organs, including the disbanded District Co-ordinating Committees.

Six of these organs are at a national level, with three of them being consultative assemblies for the main wing, and the Women’s and Youth leagues.

I will illustrate how the three of these national principal organs constitute a performance management system; namely the People’s National Congress, the National People’s Conference, and the Central Committee.

The Congress is Zanu-PF’s supreme policy-making, which meets in ordinary session once every five years. Congress formulates, pronounces and declares all policies of Zanu-PF, as well as formulating and issuing directives, rules and regulations to all organs of the party.

It is the supreme and ultimate authority for implementation and supervision of the policies, directives, rules and regulations.

For the purposes of actioning these functions, Congress tasks certain individuals by electing the President and First Secretary, two Vice Presidents and Second Secretaries, the National Chairman, a Central Committee, and approving the heads and deputies of the departments constituting the Politburo.

When Congress is not in session, the Central Committee shall be the principal organ of Congress and shall act on its behalf.

Amongst its various functions, the Central Committee shall have full plenary unfettered power to give directions, supervise and superintend all the functions of the Central Government in relation to the programmes as enunciated by Congress, as well as to implement all policies, directives, decision and programmes enunciated by Congress.

The Central Committee has an executive committee which acts as its administrative organ to implement all the decisions, directives, rules and regulations of the Central Committee.

This administrative organ, which meets once a month, is known as the Politburo and is answerable to the Central Committee which in turn meets once every three months.

There is need for the Central Committee to be monitored regularly by National Peoples’ Conference on behalf of Congress since the Central Committee acts on behalf of Congress.

Because Congress meets once every five years, the National People’s Conference meets annually in ordinary session to receive and consider reports of the Central Committee on behalf of Congress, as well as to co-ordinate and supervise implementation and programmes of Congress by the Central Committee.

This essentially makes the National People’s Conference a performance monitoring mechanism to determine the performance of the Central Committee in discharging the mandate given to it by Congress.

I would hazard to propose that the mandate of the heads of department within the Politburo be reviewed annually to determine whether they are performing.

Improved Performance for Accelerated Zim-Asset Implementation

Having said all this, how do the principal organs and structures of Zanu-PF facilitate enhancement of the performance of its elected and appointed officials at the national level?

We must remain alive to the fact that the ultimate objective is to accelerate the implementation of Zim-Asset as stated in the theme for Zanu-PF’s 6th National People’s Congress.

The processes of implementation, monitoring and evaluation contribute towards actualising the theme: “Accelerated Implementation of Zim-Asset”.

It is, therefore, necessary that there is clarity on what constitutes implementation, monitoring and evaluation as they pertain to the principal organs of Zanu-PF.

Implementation involves processes of putting resolutions into action. Monitoring is the process of taking regular stock of the progress of any activity, whilst evaluation is the process of determining if an activity has achieved its intended purpose.

The National People’s Congress is an evaluation mechanism, whilst the National People’s Conference provides monitoring for and on behalf of Congress and the Central Committee acts as the implementation framework for Congress.

Accelerating implementation of Zim-Asset requires that we evaluate the performance of the leaders that were elected into office at the 5th National People’s Congress.

We must bear in mind that Congress has two major responsibilities which pertain to resolving the party and country’s strategic direction, and tasking certain persons to implement the resolutions.

The election of office bearers at Congress essentially constitutes an evaluation of individual persons.

The evaluation function of Congress examines an individual in terms of their demonstrated capacity to discharge a responsibility that they would have been given.

This therefore means that officials elected into the Central Committee must have demonstrated their positive contribution to the party, and must NOT have been involved in any activities that are negative to and detrimental to the interests of the Party and the nation.

Such activities include being part of the regime change agenda, fanning factionalism, and treasonously plotting to overthrow and to assassinate the President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF, Cde Mugabe.

Furthermore, re-election into the Central Committee must be premised on demonstrable ability to perform. Surely, the inability to prepare and organise for the 6th National Youth Conference is indicative of a failure to perform.

In terms of Section 21(3) of Zanu-PF’s Constitution, “Congress shall elect members of the Central Committee.”

Whilst the Provincial Co-ordinating Committees, in terms of Section 32(10) as read with Section 32(2), constitute the electoral colleges for the purposes of arriving at nominations of members of the Central Committee, it is Congress that elects.

Provincial Co-ordinating Committees should save Congress the burden of having to reject the nomination of factional kingpins, regime change agents and treasonous coup plotters.

Even if such undesirable elements were to sneak their way into nomination at provincial level, they will be rejected by Congress.

The evaluation of leaders at Congress will separate the wheat from the chaff and yield a Central Committee that is comprised of persons that have the aptitude and orientation to work towards the accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset.

As indicated earlier, Central Committee provides the implementation framework for Congress. Consequently, the makeup, structure and operations of the Central Committee must be such as to facilitate the accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset.

My personal opinion is that the current internal structure of the Central Committee does not enable and facilitate for the majority of its members to contribute towards implementing the resolutions of Congress which will include the accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset.

Central to the dysfunctional structure of the Central Committee is the size of the Politburo which has a large number of members who consider themselves to be senior members of the party but do not have responsibilities that yield tangible benefits to the party and nation.

They end up engaging in useless and counterproductive power games and factional contestations.

I would propose that the Politburo be reduced to incorporate only the President and First Secretary, the two Vice Presidents and Second Secretaries, the National Chairman, the heads of departments, and ten female members representing Zimbabwe’s ten provinces so as to comply with Section 19(2) which requires that women shall constitute one third of the total membership of the principal organs.

I am proposing a restructuring that renders me redundant, together with my colleague deputy secretaries for departments in the Politburo.

I, further, suggest that each one of the heads of departments would head a sub-committee of the Central Committee that relates to their department, and that each one of the members of the Central Committee would then be a member of a departmental sub-committee.

Such departmental sub-committees would have a wider membership and thus allow for more skills and human capital to be deployed towards ensuring the implementation of Congress resolutions that pertain to that department, including the implementation of Zim-Asset.

In this way, I believe that the Central Committee would be that much more effective in terms of having full plenary unfettered powers to implement all policies, directives, decision and programmes enunciated by Congress, and to give directions, supervise and superintend all the functions of the Central Government in relation to the programmes as enunciated by Congress.

Central Committee would thus be structurally enabled to accelerate the implementation of Zim-Asset.

However, as Central Committee meets once every quarter, it is necessary for the National People’s Conference to monitor the performance of Central Committee annually on behalf of Congress.

This requires that the National People’s Conference would need to be monitoring progress in accordance to benchmarks and milestones that are set by Congress. Congress must be a bit more specific in terms of the resolutions it arrives at; there is need to set milestones.

Zanu-PF’s structures at provincial level have also invoked the provisions of Section 251 of the party constitution to conduct votes on no confidence in their colleagues who would have failed to discharge their duties.

What boggles the mind now is the recommendation that some of those comrades that would have failed to perform at junior levels should be elected to higher offices.

This runs counter to the laws of natural justice. How can it be possible that person who would have failed to operate as a provincial chairman would then be elevated to become a member of the Central Committee?

It would make sense that when a person has been subjected to a vote of no confidence by the appropriate organ, then that person should be interdicted from holding office for a period that is equivalent to the tenure of the relevant organ.

What this means is that a person that has been subjected to a vote of no confidence in, say the provincial executive committee, would be suspended for a period of four years.

In this way, the members of any organ can call a colleague to order in terms of the discharge of their duties. Such a provision would promote for better harmony within executive committees at various levels of the party.

By promoting harmony within Zanu-PF’s structures, it is possible to create the conditions for accelerating implementation of Zim-Asset.

Furthermore, Zanu-PF’s constitution has in-built mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the performance of elected and appointed officials.

To be able to accelerate implementation of Zim-Asset, it is necessary to facilitate enhancement of the performance of elected and appointed officials.

Those officials that have been at the forefront of fomenting divisions and disunity have demonstrated that they hinder the accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset and should not be re-elected to the Central Committee.

They are toxic. Pasi nematoxins. Pasi neRegime Change. Icho!

 

Honourable Patrick Zhuwao is Chair of Zhuwao Institute, an economics, development and research think tank that focus on integrating socio-political dimensions into business and economic decision making, particularly strategic planning. Zhuwao holds a BSc (Honours) degree in Computer Systems Engineering and an MBA degree in Information Technology Management (City University, London). He also holds BSc (Honours) and MSc degrees in Economics (University of Zimbabwe), as well as a Master of Management (with distinction) degree in Public and Development Management (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg).You can reach him at [email protected] and [email protected]

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