The Sunday Mail
Christmas has come round once again, and this time, for most of us, it will be better since a lot of things have been going right in recent months and generally this year, so the promise of new life that the Christian holiday brings is matched in the secular world.
For a start, we can move around more, celebrate more, since we have worked hard to at least contain Covid-19 after dealing with it for almost three years. It is still around, and so we need to take basic precautions, but we have fought it to a near standstill. We sometimes forget the lockdowns and other methods that worked, although they inconvenienced us, but at least this Christmas, we are almost back to normal, so we can assemble as families on this most family-centred time of the year.
Christmas is traditionally the time of the year when the rainy season really gets going. While a bit too many of our Christmas songs, images and the like tend to stress the snow that falls in northern climes in late December, for every Zimbabwean, those childhood memories are always sitting with our family at home in the middle of a green world, watching the rain fall, or stepping out of church into a clear world with the light, and Christmas lights, reflecting from pools of water.
Climate change may have made that rarer, but this year, we have beaten the odds. Trees and gardens are green, crops are growing, the air is clear with all the dust settled, and rain drifts down at intervals and brings back all those happy memories. We should be thankful.
We have also had two years now of sustained economic growth, the highest in Africa. More importantly, the growth in both years has been significantly higher than our population growth, and that means on average, we have all become a bit better off. Economic growth means the country’s wealth rises, and that gets shared.
Some of that growth was generated by businesses that had to employ more people, so there were more jobs. Since a lot of those new jobs were in areas where roads and dams are being built, or when new investors need fairly large workforces to break the ground for new mines, or major new construction, away from established cities, a lot of those new jobs are spread widely.
That, in turn, benefits many more people; more people can afford to buy more food, better food, and more things, so others can make more money by growing more, making more, selling more. Even the pavement vendor has a better business.
As the Government continually stresses, it is not just pushing up our gross domestic product that will make us an upper middle- income country, although that is the starting point, but making sure that everyone is contributing to that growth, so benefiting. We will be an upper middle-income country when we have an upper middle-income population. In colonial times, the country did get richer, but all the extra ended up with less than 5 percent of the population, and that did not and could not last.
President Mnangagwa’s continued reminder that no place and no person must be left behind is not just natural justice and a good social policy, it is also good economics. Only if we are all involved in growth can the country maintain that growth.
Our largest single group in formal employment are civil servants and members of the security services. They are in a far better position than they have been in recent years, as the Second Republic is able to at least start delivering, again sustainably, with no fancy money printing or other short-term fixes that give a few months of gain followed by years of collapse.
This year, after gazing into its accounts and counting the cash, the Government has been able to give all lower and middle-ranking civil servants a full bonus in foreign currency, although their bosses have to wait to find out if they managed to meet or exceed their performance targets. Then President Mnangagwa looked harder and found we could afford to add a bit extra to the 13th cheque, another US$200, with a bit extra for pensioners as well. So, he authorised the bonus on the bonus and gave the orders, again, because we had the money and not because we printed it.
But that means, even after civil servants have set aside money for school fees and other essentials, and we hope stashed a little emergency money away, most will be able to broaden their shopping a bit and buy a few presents for children and the odd luxury to make Christmas more comfortable. For once, the civil service appears to be doing better than the private sector, and that is something that should go along with their greater accountability and the demand that they do a good job.
All this extra Christmas money from the bonuses, both private and civil service, generates bonuses for others. Now that 80 percent of the goods on our shelves are local, extra spending actually means our factories can make more, cheering up their workers as well as the owners. It also means that those who have started businesses themselves, from raising chickens to applying their education to create something new, have larger markets, so they win.
Even Zesa has been pushing the envelope a bit, having managed to find a bit extra to buy power from Mozambique and has also done some essential repairs on the two old units at the Hwange Thermal Power Station, so it can cut back on load shedding, and help keep more lights on over Christmas, cheering us all up. That sort of progress will now be continually required from Zesa, announcing what has been done, not what is hoped to be done soon.
A Christmas to enjoy
The Sunday Mail
Christmas has come round once again, and this time, for most of us, it will be better since a lot of things have been going right in recent months and generally this year, so the promise of new life that the Christian holiday brings is matched in the secular world.
For a start, we can move around more, celebrate more, since we have worked hard to at least contain Covid-19 after dealing with it for almost three years. It is still around, and so we need to take basic precautions, but we have fought it to a near standstill. We sometimes forget the lockdowns and other methods that worked, although they inconvenienced us, but at least this Christmas, we are almost back to normal, so we can assemble as families on this most family-centred time of the year.
Christmas is traditionally the time of the year when the rainy season really gets going. While a bit too many of our Christmas songs, images and the like tend to stress the snow that falls in northern climes in late December, for every Zimbabwean, those childhood memories are always sitting with our family at home in the middle of a green world, watching the rain fall, or stepping out of church into a clear world with the light, and Christmas lights, reflecting from pools of water.
Climate change may have made that rarer, but this year, we have beaten the odds. Trees and gardens are green, crops are growing, the air is clear with all the dust settled, and rain drifts down at intervals and brings back all those happy memories. We should be thankful.
We have also had two years now of sustained economic growth, the highest in Africa. More importantly, the growth in both years has been significantly higher than our population growth, and that means on average, we have all become a bit better off. Economic growth means the country’s wealth rises, and that gets shared.
Some of that growth was generated by businesses that had to employ more people, so there were more jobs. Since a lot of those new jobs were in areas where roads and dams are being built, or when new investors need fairly large workforces to break the ground for new mines, or major new construction, away from established cities, a lot of those new jobs are spread widely.
That, in turn, benefits many more people; more people can afford to buy more food, better food, and more things, so others can make more money by growing more, making more, selling more. Even the pavement vendor has a better business.
As the Government continually stresses, it is not just pushing up our gross domestic product that will make us an upper middle- income country, although that is the starting point, but making sure that everyone is contributing to that growth, so benefiting. We will be an upper middle-income country when we have an upper middle-income population. In colonial times, the country did get richer, but all the extra ended up with less than 5 percent of the population, and that did not and could not last.
President Mnangagwa’s continued reminder that no place and no person must be left behind is not just natural justice and a good social policy, it is also good economics. Only if we are all involved in growth can the country maintain that growth.
Our largest single group in formal employment are civil servants and members of the security services. They are in a far better position than they have been in recent years, as the Second Republic is able to at least start delivering, again sustainably, with no fancy money printing or other short-term fixes that give a few months of gain followed by years of collapse.
This year, after gazing into its accounts and counting the cash, the Government has been able to give all lower and middle-ranking civil servants a full bonus in foreign currency, although their bosses have to wait to find out if they managed to meet or exceed their performance targets. Then President Mnangagwa looked harder and found we could afford to add a bit extra to the 13th cheque, another US$200, with a bit extra for pensioners as well. So, he authorised the bonus on the bonus and gave the orders, again, because we had the money and not because we printed it.
But that means, even after civil servants have set aside money for school fees and other essentials, and we hope stashed a little emergency money away, most will be able to broaden their shopping a bit and buy a few presents for children and the odd luxury to make Christmas more comfortable. For once, the civil service appears to be doing better than the private sector, and that is something that should go along with their greater accountability and the demand that they do a good job.
All this extra Christmas money from the bonuses, both private and civil service, generates bonuses for others. Now that 80 percent of the goods on our shelves are local, extra spending actually means our factories can make more, cheering up their workers as well as the owners. It also means that those who have started businesses themselves, from raising chickens to applying their education to create something new, have larger markets, so they win.
Even Zesa has been pushing the envelope a bit, having managed to find a bit extra to buy power from Mozambique and has also done some essential repairs on the two old units at the Hwange Thermal Power Station, so it can cut back on load shedding, and help keep more lights on over Christmas, cheering us all up. That sort of progress will now be continually required from Zesa, announcing what has been done, not what is hoped to be done soon.
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