Ghana occupies a special place in the African narrative as the first child in sub-Saharan Africa of the revolution to assert the civil and economic rights of the majority and, therefore, one would expect to draw lessons from its experience in delivering the promise of a better life. Report By Mutumwa Mawere
The first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, initially urged colonial Africa to “seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added onto you” and later revised his statement to say that economic independence was what African nations needed first and foremost. Zimbabwe got political freedom in 1980 and the expectation was that people in political office would use the new State positions for collective good.
The political kingdom allowed former revolutionaries to assume state positions against a backdrop of poverty, unemployment and economic inequality especially among the majority black population.
The first objective of the revolution was to deliver the promise of political and civil rights to all the people, but the post-colonial experience has produced its own political and economic absurdities.
The most vocal people on indigenisation are the very people who have the instruments of the state at their disposal to make a difference yet they often choose to use the state to enrich themselves.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the journey of 33 years has been good to only a few.
The call for indigenisation must, therefore, be seen in a context of a revolution that never had generals with a clear understanding of what is needed to deliver the promise of prosperity, inclusivity and equality. The political founding fathers like Nkrumah were equipped with skills equal to the challenge of the day ie de-colonisation and the more they clung to power the less they were able to create bridges allowing for citizens to realise the dream of a better life.
The propensity to lean backwards is not accidental for it is difficult for any person who acquires fame by fighting against a system to erase the pain and suffering endured in the process.
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How best can the challenges of economic inequality, poverty and unemployment be addressed?
The easy answer is that the state is best equipped to deliver the promise. So the contention by Professor Moyo in defence of the Zimplats Indigenisation Transaction that all natural resources belong to the people of Zimbabwe is to be founded in the mistaken assumption that natural resources are capable of being owned and, therefore, the State on, behalf of the people, is the true owner of the resources.
The resources in question have always been hidden and the saying that: “God made minerals and hid them” correctly exposes the fallacy that poverty, unemployment and inequality can be best addressed by merely altering the share register of productive companies.
If this were true, then surely, Angola, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among many African States that God generously endowed resources to, would be the richest nations.
The fact that resource-rich nations can still face the challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment suggests that the conversation on indigenisation must encompass key and fundamental ideological questions. In addition, the questions posed by Manheru in a bid to discredit the SMM Holdings Transaction as legitimate and not worthy of inclusion as part of the economic transformation transactions are relevant in attempting to locate correctly the role of the State, if any, in delivering the promise of a better life.
These questions include: “Did he pay for the takeover? Or was he going to settle the purchase from the exploitation of the Zimbabwean resource? He, himself, tells us it was the latter, comparing the deal to a housing mortgage. Did he use the exploited resource to pay off the original shareholders?”
Even Manheru would be aware that any black person born before independence qualifies as an indigenous person. This would naturally include a person of my profile. The revolution sought to rebuild bridges that were artificially broken by the colonial order and where market failure was caused by an act of State, the intervention of the State is normally deemed necessary to correct the distortions including access to resources.
I have no doubt that the aim of the revolution was not to create the state as some kind of messiah or let alone a real person capable of replacing natural persons in the game of wealth creation. I believe that both Manheru and Moyo who have chosen to share their insights and ideas on the subject of indigenisation through their contribution would agree that human beings do not need a government to be human but governments do need human beings to serve.
Accordingly, any ideology premised on glorifying the state as a source of salvation will never deliver the promise. Resources generously given by God can, therefore, be of limited value unless capital, execution and knowledge exist to identify, exploit and market such resources.
A government is really a vessel for citizens to advance their interest and any proposition that says that resources can belong to such an instrument for change is, therefore, wrong. What was the true intention of the revolution? Has the experience of the last 33 years added value to the promise?
So like Moyo and Manheru would argue that Zanu PF, the party relevant in the struggle for independence possesses all the answers and, indeed, the government belongs to the party.
If the government is an instrument of the party, then the argument presented is that the resources also belong to the party. The membership of Zanu PF is not known in the public domain but any intelligent guess would not put the actual card-carrying membership at more than 20 000.
It would be interesting to find out from the party’s spin doctors the correct number of members of the party. If the guess is wrong, a real number must exist for a party that is almost 50 years old.
The recent census of Zimbabwe has given us an indication of the population of Zimbabwe. The number is known and, therefore, to assert that a party of volunteers represents the universe is the beginning of the folly that has caused Zimbabwe to underperform.
The party does not own its members to allow it to be supreme to the very people it was formed to serve. The role of the party in the state has to be located in a broader conversation on the requirements of a democratic constitutional order. The government has a role to play but the genius found in progressive states is to correctly understand its role. Surely the government cannot seek to do what individual citizens can do for themselves.
If two people can come together and marry without a constitution then surely such people do not need a government to do the kind of things that such a union can accomplish.
Mutumwa Mawere is a businessman based in South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
