The Sunday Mail
The Zhuwao Brief congratulates Zanu-PF and its candidates for a clean sweep of the by-elections held on 10th June 2015.
On the face of it, this was a landslide for the ruling party. A landslide that not only consolidated Zanu-PF’s constitutional majority, but one that enabled it to restore its presence in urban areas including Mutare and Kwekwe, but more importantly, Bulawayo and Harare.
Is this not a poisoned chalice? Is this not a pyrrhic victory as was the case in 2005? Will this victory not come back to haunt Zanu-PF in 2018 or 2023? Is this donation from the MDC formations not a Trojan horse?
The Zhuwao Brief is worried, very worried indeed. It all appears too good to be true. Why, you may ask?
I struggle to accept that Tendai Biti did not know that the launch of MDC Renewal would trigger by-elections. The Zhuwao Brief struggles to accept that the American regime would forgive Biti for handing over an opportunity for Zanu-PF to consolidate its Parliamentary strength to the point of incorporating him within one of its think tanks.
Tendai Biti then spends a number of weeks in Washington at some think tank. Think tanking about what?
This week we examine how Zanu-PF can hold onto the gains. This means Zanu-PF needs to review its behaviour in the face of a super majority as occurred in 2005.
This requires a major paradigm shift in which Zanu-PF addresses the behaviour of officials so they desist from abusing authority and, instead, focus on driving the economy forward.
There have been several congratulatory messages to Zanu-PF and its candidates. Some of these highlight how the victory as a morale booster. That is true.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo, has correctly exhorted the candidates to work with their constituents. However, a similar exhortation should also be made to Zanu-PF’s Cabinet ministers and Politburo members. It is Zanu-PF’s senior leadership that has a penchant for throwing away victory.
I must hasten to add that I am a part of that senior leadership.
Whilst Reason Wafawarova rightly credits previous performance of the opposition to Zanu-PF’s shortcomings, he shies away from attributing some of those shortcomings to our misbehaviours as leaders.
Being active on social media, I receive a significant amount of vitriol against Zanu-PF and Government, most of which is not only abusive but also downright obscene.
The level of venom was more pronounced towards the end of the week as by-election results became apparent.
The bitterness was now directed at the opposition and Zanu-PF leadership.
I am concerned with the vitriol directed at Zanu-PF because it is the ruling party.
Zanu-PF’s leadership is accused of corruption and “ruining” the country and economy.
There is no discrimination in apportioning blame and in absolving some of us. We are blamed as a collective.
As a member of that leadership collective, I am duty-bound to call some of my wayward colleagues to order. I have a duty to address these perceptions of corruption and make my contributions towards sustainable socio-economic transformation and development.
I am only one member in a leadership collective with highly educated and extremely intelligent colleagues.
Surely, we have the intellectual capacity to address our society’s developmental and transformational aspirations? Where do the wheels come off?
The Zhuwao Brief speculates that individualistic self-interest gets in the way of growth and development. I would even go as far as to say that individualistic self-interest has created, in some instances, hurdles and roadblocks to empowerment, development and transformation.
I have personal experience of this in the Empowerment Corporation and Telecel Zimbabwe shareholding debacle.
After spending over a year-and-a-half structuring a way to restore the original empowerment objectives of Government when Telecel Zimbabwe’s license was issued, I was shocked to hear some leaders of pressure groups seeking to be accommodated at personal levels.
This was despite the fact that such a structure would have demonstrated the success of one of Government’s earliest economic empowerment schemes.
Over and above that, members of the Affirmative Action Group, Indigenous Business Women’s Organisation, Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Zimbabwe National Miners Association and the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association have been denied gross realisations of up to US$2 571 428 each by leaders of some of these organisations.
These individuals went to the extent of boasting they had blocked the initiatives because of their political clout.
Cry the beloved country!
I am convinced that if Zanu-PF’s senior leadership sets aside individualistic self-interest, the landslide victory in these by-elections would not be a pyrrhic victory.
A reaffirmation to serving the interests of the people and nation would provide the necessary antidote to this poisoned chalice that is being handed to us by the MDCs.
Zanu-PF would cripple the Trojan horse that saw the waiter of the poison chalice spending several weeks being taught how to ride the Trojan horse under the guise of think tanking. Think tanking my foot!
Some of the solutions we need are easy. They require Zanu-PF’s leadership to refocus on serving the people.
This notion can be illustrated by focusing on the case of Harare Metropolitan province.
According to the 2012 National Census, Harare has 2 123 132 people.
These people go to the toilet every day the extent of overburdening their own water supply sources with raw sewerage. They face water supply challenges partly because they excrete their human waste into their reservoirs.
They are also subjected to constant power outages, and yet their excrement is a source of biogas energy that could be used to generate electricity.
Their problem represents a solution to another problem.
And yet we have a national institution that develops an electricity power supply system development plan that ignores this opportunity. Micro-scale electricity generators do not have capacity to fill brown envelopes.
Further, there are so many rooftops in Harare that can provide significant solar generation capacity. This is power that could be used internally in the household within which it is generated, with excess sold to the grid.
Another example involves the issue of housing. A programme that would facilitate densification of Harare’s suburbs would result in more rateable living floor space per square metre.
This would create revenue to maintain the already installed public infrastructure without opening new land at great cost to service it.
However, a densification programme would not provide opportunities for rent-seeking behaviour and abuse of home-seekers.
On another tip, Harare receives enough rainfall to cater for its needs annually.
Establishing weirs on Harare’s streams would not only harvest this water, but would also create opportunities for urban horticulture.
But no, we cannot do that. We would cut off the need to issue import permits for fresh produce from South Africa; and concomitantly, the thank you envelopes that are exchanged for these permits.
I can almost hear you say how will these ideas be funded?
Harare’s streets are clogged with so much traffic. This traffic nightmare represents investments that people have made because we have not created sufficient financial instruments to cater for low level investments.
An environment that allows an individual to invest in some of these concepts at micro-levels will grow the economy of Harare significantly whilst addressing these challenges.
Yet we spend so much effort trying to lure foreign investors whilst ignoring our own.
Sorry I forgot. A trip to Washington yields subsistence and travel allowances that would not materialise if you recognise the investment value of the countless Ipsums and Raums in Harare.
Apart from which, Harare traffic police need to pay for their children’s fees. Oh my God!
The victory handed to Zanu-PF in the by-elections could turn out to be a poisoned chalice. It could be a Trojan horse designed to make the landslide a pyrrhic victory.
The Zhuwao Brief does not believe that Tendai Biti did not understand the constitutional implications of his renewal project. Neither do we believe that he spent several weeks think tanking about anything else except regime change in Zimbabwe.
It is impossible that the proponents of regime change have given up. They have learnt and understood the behaviour of Zanu-PF’s leadership from the indiscipline we exhibited after the constitutional majority of 2005.
We behaved so badly prior that we ended up with a Parliamentary minority in 2008, necessitating an inclusive Government.
Zanu-PF’s leadership needs to know that a trap has been set. It is time for our leadership to reform and focus on our people’s empowerment, developmental and transformational aspirations.
Pasi ne personal individualistic self-interest. Ndini wenyu mafirakureva. Icho!
Patrick Zhuwao is chair of Zhuwao Institute, an economics, development and research think tank focused on integrating socio-political dimensions into business and economic decision making, particularly strategic planning. He can be reached at [email protected].
