Possibly irked, shamed and indeed if not embarrassed, then certainly disconcerted by the slow growth of the South African economy over the years when compared to other BRICS countries, Professor Vusi Gumede, writing in the Mail&Guardian issue of November 23, 2012, felt that “the cause (of poor economic performance)is to be found in poor policies and delayed policy reforms”. The introspection, by the former Chief Policy Analyst in the South African Presidency, was triggered by the latest census results which confirmed that South Africa’s social and economic transformation has been slow. The Professor defines policy as “the government’s clarity of strategic intent”. “Ideally,” he notes, “policy should be disengaged from politics and it should always take precedence, so that when politics flounder, as it often does, policy should stand the test of time, with policy clarity ensuring that the bureaucracy understands the government’s strategic intent. It (the bureaucracy) should be able to pursue the strategic intent, even in the midst of political pollution.”
Opinion by Tapiwa Nyandoro
Back home here in Zimbabwe it was encouraging to read in the Zimbabwe Independent of November 30, 2012, that the National Railways of Zimbabwe general manager, Retired Air Commodore Karakadzai, was of the same opinion. He is reported as having said “government should not dabble in business, but work towards creating an enabling business environment”. Significantly, he was speaking at a seminar on how to restore Bulawayo’s industrial prowess, organised by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Training College. Evidently poor economic growth has registered on the radar as a national security threat.
Thus when political pollution seized the country in the aftermath of the 2000 elections, the national economy descended into a free fall. Every parastatal chief, including the central bank governor, blamed his or her principal for ill-advised decisions that led to viability and solvency crises in many enterprises. The corrective route to take at national level would be to confine Cabinet to policymaking, leaving implementation or strategy execution, to bureaucrats. Policy and role clarity are, therefore, essential for economic growth.
With a few exceptions, if any, line ministries have failed in running anything remotely resembling a public enterprise. In all of the ministries polluted politics has been the culprit. Give a politician the option of retaining office or saving a State-owned industry from bankruptcy, he will in the majority of cases, without hesitation, opt for the former. As a result, it makes sense to transfer all the State-owned and controlled organisations to one independent commission, under the ministry of State-controlled industries, modelled on the lines China has followed. The idea is to create strong institutions that can survive political transitions by remaining focused on the strategic intent.
Debate has gone on as to what are good policies that ensure economic growth. But the base or anchor policy seems common. According to a recent article in the South African weekly quoted above, by Songezo Zibi of the Midrand Group, a loose association of thinkers trying to establish a just and economically stable society in South Africa, Alan Greenspan, the former United States Federal Reserve Bank chairperson, when asked what he considered the most significant contributor to economic growth responded: “The rule of law”, a point reinforced a lot earlier by Lord Mansfield who is regarded as the founding father of English commercial law who observed that: “In all mercantile transactions, the great object should be certainty . . . Because speculators (investors and businessmen) then know what ground to go upon.”
But here the appearance of the subversion of the rule of law by the political class continues, especially in the beleaguered mining and land reform sector under siege from the indigenisation drive. “Before ploughing large sums of money into long-term ventures”, writes Zibi, “investors want to be comfortable they can rely on the law and its institutions to retain access to their investments and rights. They also need to be certain that when they approach the authorities for administrative justice, it will be dispensed with fairness and integrity and that agencies tasked with facilitating commercial transactions will pursue this with diligence and honour.”
Agriculture and mining have been identified by the World Bank as the two keys to a viable and sustainable economic growth strategy for Zimbabwe. By applying the indigenisation law retrospectively, while trying to wiggle out of paying for appropriated shareholding, we are guilt of changing the goalposts. We fail the honour test. Government’s first policy should be to uphold the rule of law.
