I remember when we were still young. We would play soccer with a ball made from rags and old plastics. Playing soccer in the streets was quite a pleasure, and of course we had our own Peles and Diego Maradonas there, whatever star’s name one wanted to identify with.
by Zanda Shumba
But often a bully would come and take the ball and claim it to be his. He would sit on it or put his foot on top of it and challenge if anybody dared to claim it. We would all be cowed and just grumble fearfully. Sometimes when the bully felt like it, he would give the ball back, but on many occasions he would just shred it just for the sake of it. He would laugh and boast, asking us if there was anything we could do about it. He was big and strong. We could merely look on, angry and embarrassed but all of us, combined, would never contemplate taking him on.
Something resembling that scenario is happening now in Zimbabwe. We have a situation where President Robert Mugabe resembles a bully. He is withholding the control of government and country from other potential leaders who want to help reboot the economy and improve people’s lives.
Mugabe is pushing Zimbabweans to the limit, to breaking point. He cannot deliver, yet he wants to continue at the helm. Many are jobless and can’t feed families or pay bills. Though it’s uncertain how events will play out, eventually the unstable economic situation will implode. It has been customary for Mugabe and his Zanu PF not to have foresight, acting only on hindsight.
There are issues that Mugabe can circumnavigate, but total economic collapse is a dead end and it’s approaching fast. If he wants to remain in power he has to revive the economy, and not appease laid-off workers through strangling businesses by forcing them to operate in unviable, impractical conditions.
Mugabe has done this over the years, ruined agriculture and therefore stalled the economy in a bid to please war veterans and party supporters.
If he forces companies to pay benefits, he is pushing them deep into loss-making, and, therefore, will ultimately fold. More workers will be laid off. You can’t put out fire using petrol. At this point much effort should have been made to keep these companies afloat rather than push them to the brink.
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The Labour Act must have been enacted long back and passing it now will only force businesses to retain workers against logic when it comes to their revenue collections. Government, for its sheer survival, is putting business in a very complicated position. The amendment will destroy the last of the vestiges of what was a thriving and promising economy. Will Mugabe and his acolytes ever learn? It seems that their objective is to usher Zimbabweans into utter poverty. Mugabe will continue to carelessly apply ruinous, not well thought-out policies to uplift workers. It’s like watching a horror movie. Because of pride, Mugabe and Zanu PF will never throw in the towel, no matter how bad the situation becomes. It’s like being held hostage by a psycho.
Laws like this will not help anybody. When Mugabe ordered the land reform, the whole economy crumbled. He acted on a grand scale and the magnitude of change was not envisaged. He still denies effects of his actions on the economy. Now he is doing much worse. Unemployment is already high and this Labour Act will push it to the limits as the few remaining businesses will actually close. Reaction is needed yes, but it should not be one that ties business hands. This is a wrong move.
It is too late to teach Mugabe to apply policies to revive the economy. Lots of advice has been provided by many, no matter how sound it was, he has largely ignored it. They say one cannot teach an old dog new tricks. We only want to hear it from Mugabe, if he can say, “I can no longer handle this it’s out of my control”. The problem with an old water pipe is patchwork won’t last. Sometimes it makes sense to just replace an old pipe.
Let there be acknowledgement of failure from Zanu PF. Failure to do so at this juncture is both foolishness and cruel. Foolishness in that the regime has failed on several occasions to turn around the economy, when it was still easier to do so. Cruelty in that government no longer cares about the suffering people, with those in civil service being paid a pittance and their medical insurances not guaranteed at all.
If government cared, it would work diligently to bring around the much-needed turnaround. There are many options, bright ones too.
There are some who are saying maybe we should just let Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa take over, perhaps he might bring some change. The only way change is going to come about is when we have a government fairly and transparently elected by the people — a government that is accountable to the people and sensitive to their needs. I don’t see how the VP can take us out of the woods, given his unwavering loyalty to Mugabe.
There are others who argue that Mnangagwa himself was unprocedurally appointed to the VP post after heavy tinkering with the Zanu PF party constitution. The source of problems crippling economy is the unelected officials running the affairs of the people. Appointed officials do not connect with the people. Over the years, Mugabe himself was just being merely endorsed in primaries by provinces, with heavy purging of provincial heads who would offer slight indications that they weren’t willing to do so.
For Zimbabweans, if Mnangagwa takes over the reins, it would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. For Mnangagwa has reportedly been the power behind Mugabe’s prolonged stay in power. It is at these critical moments that power should revert to the people.
In truly democratic establishments, power rests with the people and not with the governing party. If the power of the people fails, even the First Lady Grace Mugabe would take over, and total darkness will prevail. If Zimbabweans don’t want to unite and tackle surmounting problems, they will all lose. Without unity Zimbabwe is doomed. We are now in the transition stage, where the source of Zimbabwe’s problems may not only be attributed to Mugabe, but to the generality of Zimbabweans, because of their indifference to the challenges. The mind-set has to change. Change should be brought about by the people themselves. Zimbabweans eventually risk becoming irrelevant should they continue to think that unity is insignificant.
