The Sunday Mail
Chris Chenga Open Economy
At any decent tertiary institution, or public library, when one wants to check the availability of a certain book, one simply logs onto the library database and enters the book title in a search bar. Within seconds, a search result appears with a response on whether or not the book is available. If it is a standard database, it directs an individual to the exact shelf location where the book can be found. If the book is out of the library, the search result will typically offer information on when the book was taken out and the due date when it will be back.
The cost to install and maintain such a library database begins at around US$5 000 to around US$30 000 annually.
This is also dependent on other factors such as the number of users and frequency of use of the database.
The process of searching for a library book is fundamentally similar to that of trying to search for the availability of an entity name at a registrar of companies.
In Zimbabwe, searching for an entity name typically involves manual submission of up to three suggested names on paper, tedious queuing between a payment point and document submission, and after all this, waiting for approximately three business days.
At the stage of entry into the formal economy, prospective economic agents are greeted by inefficiency and excessively complicated administrative procedures.
It is easy to disregard Government’s vocal enthusiasm towards improving the ease of business when presented with such fundamental incompetence.
The difficulty in the business environment of Zimbabwe is not necessarily that Government is unable to facilitate economic agents; it could if it really wanted to.
The problem with our business environment is that governmental organs have gotten used to functioning in the manner that they do, and over time have created all sorts of incentives that make it difficult to move away from certain practices.
Quite often, African governments are portrayed in an offensive narrative of incapacity to execute structural reforms.
This is an incorrect interpretation.
The fact of the matter is that many of our governments have found structural deficiencies to be conducive for cultures of patronage, corruption, as well as information and resource monopoly.
More directly, many of the structural deficiencies in Zimbabwe are neither unintended nor are they difficult to resolve.
The structural deficiencies found in governmental organs are, in fact, of greater incentive to sustain than they are to eliminate. There are too many beneficiaries of these deficiencies and over time they have created ecosystems within our governmental organs that are now hard to eliminate.
On this grounding, perhaps it becomes clearer that it is wrong to interpret structural reforms in Zimbabwe as a matter of economic aptitude by governance, or a lack of resources to carry out reforms.
The issue of structural reforms is one of confronting the culture of patronage, rent-seeking and corruption!
Each and every structural reform suggestion for efficiency is an existential adversary to an opportunity for patronage, rent-seeking and corruption.
For instance, by intentionally hindering the process of entity name search, how many functions in the process does that create for patronage, rent-seeking and corruption?
Thus, is this fundamental incompetence a matter of governance aptitude and lacking resources, or it is one of intentionally sustained opportunities for misconduct?
This is merely at the entry point of doing business in Zimbabwe; suffice to leave one’s own imagination towards how many opportunities for patronage, rent-seeking and corruption abound beyond initial entry.
Perhaps not spoken of enough in Zimbabwe is that a growing informal sector could be subtle expression by prospective economic agents against these undesirable cultural vices that plague the Zimbabwean economy.
In alternative context, while Government has frequently spoken about improving our economic competitiveness through establishing agencies such as the National Incomes and Pricing Commission, such an agency was an inadvertent establishment of a predecessor anti-corruption taskforce of sorts.
The uncompetitive state of our formal economy is actually derived from the cultural vices of patronage, rent-seeking and corruption.
These are income and price inflators that only become transparent at retail stage by innocent economic agents.
The African Development Bank estimates that Zimbabwe loses up to US$1 billion annually from structural deficiencies.
Granted, such an assertion is alarming.
A more profound consideration is how much of that goes to reward patronage, rent-seeking and corruption?
Structural reforms in Zimbabwe, particularly those of ease of doing business, have not been accurately contextualised in our discourse. The thrust towards ease of doing business is a struggle against cultural vices that plague our economy, yet are well entrenched in numerous governmental organs.
It has been several years since Government initially put in place plans for improving the Ease of Doing Business metrics as per standard World Bank metrics.
We have seen little improvement of sustained improvement; maybe then we can interpret this slow traction as the vehement force of resistance that a nation faces when trying to eradicate matured cultural vices?
