The Sunday Mail
November is a low-key month in our culture.
The “month of the goat” brings down the curtain on all festivities and ceremonies.
It is a taboo for people to marry in this month, lest you be cursed or stricken in broad daylight by the gods, so we are told.
November strikes me as a month of sadness, before Zvita (thanksgiving) unleashes the festivities and celebrations again. As today marks the end of the month of the goat, I would like to empty all my sad personal glimpes and issues of concern within me, for it will not have space within me once Zvita touches down in less than 24 hours. I am saddened by the spectacle I see in the city sidewalks and pavements.
They are awash with youths chanting: “WhatsApp nemasettings.”
It is almost a stampede in First Street, Copacabana and the Gulf Shopping Complex as youths jostle for space.
You pick your way through the melee, while praying the slick-fingered don’t pick your pockets. Loading WhatsApp and Internet settings (which the mobile service operators do for free anyway) has become these youths’ employment.
They can earn a few dollars a day, just about enough to buy a meal and remain with transport money to get a kombi home at paMushikashika and come back to their “workplaces” again on the morrow. It is much worse at PaBooster in Epworth where I hear young girls there are prepared to sleep with just about anyone for as little as R5. World Aids Day tomorrow comes to remind us how women bear the brunt of HIV prevalence.
While the Constitution aspires to ensure youths such as those alluded to above “are afforded opportunities for employment and other avenues to economic empowerment”, it appears that the empowerment models being adopted by some parastatals seek to enrich the already established and successful companies, while the youths remain condemned to prostitution and pickpocketing. Econet has ideally empowered hundreds of thousands of folks at the lower end countrywide by directly registering them as agents who can perform cash in and out transactions for its EcoCash customers. They get a good commission, with my uncle in one of the remote areas in the countryside getting circa US$1 000 every month. Many young women, too, around town are operating as agents, redeeming themselves from the nasty substitutes they are faced with.
To me, such is an ideal empowerment model that can be adopted by parastatals.
Then comes Zesa, which has now become innovative and is now selling electricity vouchers via agents for those with prepaid meters.
Initially, these vouchers were only acquired from the power utility’s banking halls. Now they have brought convenience. But certainly no meaningful lower end empowerment to smile about.
Instead of directly recruiting agents from the small players scattered across the country, Zesa chooses to use nine e-vending agents. These, in turn, recruit sub-agents to sell the vouchers, albeit at ridiculous commissions that do not promote empowerment and inclusivity.
The nine e-vending agents include NetOne, ZB Bank, TelOne, Petro Trade, CBZ and Zimpost — large corporations.
E-vending agents such as Zimpost are giving a ridiculous commission as low as one percent to their sub-agents.
Imagine how the majority of the population would have been empowered if Zesa had decided to deal directly with the sub-agents. Just like the EcoCash model.
Whether it’s legislation or company policy that is flawed, something should be done to unlock such avenues.
We need an economic realignment process to link opportunities to more people and not just a few fat cats.
While I also appreciate the convenience that has been brought by mobile money in the payment system, I also condemn the legal bottlenecks that come with it.
Why, for instance, am I required to produce my identity card when I am cashing out using, say, EcoCash?
Very few people move around with their IDs all the time.
Ironically, I don’t have to produce an ID card when I am buying using a bank ATM card or withdrawing cash from an ATM.
The two, however, share mutual risks.
I am also bitter about banks, how they want to remain uptight and conservative in a people’s republic.
For instance, I was shocked to be told by my bank that the quickest I can access money from my investment account is seven days.
Why should I wait seven days to get money which I need today, now, stupid?
Banks should move with the changing tastes and preferences of the people or risk facing the demise of the dinosaur.
It will also be stupid for the economist in me to pretend as if nothing is happening in the next two days.
Of course, it’s the occasion of the ruling party’s National Congress.
Political economy tells us about how we have to stay alive to political developments, especially those involving the ruling party. Factionalism has gripped the mainstream political movements in the country, with the ruling party not being left out. Factionalism is not good for any realm, whether earthly or heavenly.
In our case, we have already heard from Zhuwao Institute, an economic think tank, that: “The most disturbing effect of factionalism in Zanu-PF over the past year has been on the economy and business confidence.”
Zanu-PF won the 2013 watershed elections resoundingly, thanks to a dynamic election manifesto that pledged socio-economic transformation anchored on empowerment, indigenisation, development and the creation of 2,2 million jobs. If factionalism is militating against attainment of such, then it must be decisively dealt with. If, for instance, it is tainting business confidence (as alluded to by Zhuwao Institute), in an economy with an urgent need for FDI and facing tight liquidity conditions, then factionalism is a public enemy. The Almighty God set a perfect precedent when he was faced with the problem of factionalism in the Kingdom of Heaven. When Lucifer was filled with envy of God’s throne, he mobilised and led a faction comprising a third of the angels and attempted to illegitimately overthrow the legitimate sovereign.
God, knowing factionalism’s devastating consequences, declared war on Lucifer and his faction.
The Bible records the rest of the story as follows: “And war broke out in Heaven. Michael (God’s army commander) and his angels fought with the dragon (Lucifer); and the dragon and his angels fought. But they (Lucifer and his faction) did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth; and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelations 12:7-9, NKJV).
President Mugabe, a devout Christian himself, has vowed that the Congress will deal with factionalism, end it actually.
He is following a divine precedent.
We have already seen that factionalism can compromise the socio-economic quality of our lives. We should enter the New Year with renewed hope that the ruling party will deliver on its election promises after it has effectively dealt with factionalism.
This would have applied to any ruling party; whether it was Egypt Dzinemunhenzva or Kisinoti Mukwazhi’s political movements. I want to cap my pen at the risk of probably being called “offside”, but, hey, there are no red cards for offsides.
It is about this Ugandan maidservant who has caused a brouhaha in the social media and cyber realms.
The poor woman is, of course, very innocent of this attempted murder crime she stands accused of, until proven otherwise. While waiting for that to happen, let us allow her to fully enjoy this legal privilege while it lasts.
So, the social media “courts” should just take it easy. Back home, they did that to the songbird, Dudu Manhenga.
She was “tried” by the social media “high court” for “killing” a cyclist whom she knocked with her car while driving without a licence. The social media “jury” found her guilty and sentenced her to a millennium in prison.
Bottomline is let’s go slow on judging the Ugandan maidservant, now popularly known as “monster maid”.
And how did the video recorded by the parents end up getting in the ever-hungry mouth of the cyber ogre?
Now the poor little girl will perpetually be “chewed” by the ferocious ogre without being swallowed.
It’s now goodbye to the month of the goat that has been suffocating many celebrations. Even Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, I am sure, decided to do the very difficult work of delivering the 2015 National Budget before the end of the sacred Mbudzi (even though he has the Constitutional privilege of presenting it in December or even still up to January 30 next year) so that he may enjoy the festive season without headaches.
So, as Zvita comes to open the shut floodgates of festivities, Happy Holidays, I say.
