The Zanu PF government’s actions in the past year and their effects on the Zimbabwean people reminds me of a classic 1957 Dr Seuss children’s book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Opinion: TINASHE NYAMUNDA
This book was successfully adapted into an American comedy drama directed by Ron Howard in 2000.
I use the classic story to reflect on the government’s treatment of its subjects (citizens used loosely), particularly during a key holiday as Christians celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus.
The Grinch and Christmas in Whoville
The Grinch (derived from the French word grincheux, meaning grumpy) is anti-holiday and especially opposed to Christmas.
His character is a furry recluse living on a cliff overlooking a cheerful, optimistic town called Whoville; just like Zanu PF leader President Robert Mugabe enjoys the high corridors of power ruling over a peace-loving, hopeful people.
Although Mugabe enjoys his annual Christmas holidays, he rarely commemorates such holidays as Christmas and Easter as enthusiastically as he does his own birthday and political holidays, where his party spares no expense.
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He is unlike other leaders such as outgoing United States President Barack Obama or South Africa’s African National Congress government, who never fail to deliver Christmas messages to their nations.
The plot has the Grinch stealing people’s Christmas presents and destroying a Christmas tree in an attempt to steal this holiday from the people of Whoville.
This is despite the town’s attempts, through the effort of a warm-hearted young girl called Cindy Lou, to give the Grinch a second chance to celebrate Christmas with the townspeople.
Although the people despise his ways and fear him, they include the Grinch in the Christmas festivities, but because he does not get what he wants from it, ends up sabotaging the celebrations.
However, after the Grinch destroys the Christmas tree and steals the presents, he has an epiphany where he realises that Christmas is not just about material things.
As Cindy Lou follows the Grinch, who is about to throw the gifts over a cliff, she almost falls over, but the Grinch saves her and the gifts and returns to Whoville, where he reconciles with the people.
The moral of the story is that Christmas is not really about money or its material benefits. Even without money, it is about love, togetherness and happiness.
Money simply provides the currency for expressing this, but is not necessarily the prerequisite for thanksgiving. The fictional story of the Grinch has a happy moral ending, but the real life experience of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has a different, but unsurprising climax.
In spite of serious unpopularity in the 2008 elections, and despite the controversy surrounding the 2013 elections, some Cindy Lous genuinely helped to re-elect the Zanu PF government.
Mugabe took the Christmas holidays with his family, away from his people.
Amid gripping fuel, cash and other shortages, he did not address the “nation” to reassure his people, but, instead, went on an expensive overseas holiday sponsored by the State.
Like the Grinch before his epiphany, Mugabe’s legacy since independence has been one of alienating the ordinary Zimbabweans as he ruthlessly maintains power.
This year alone, Zimbabwean citizens participated in numerous protests against the mismanagement of the country’s economy.
But these dissenting voices were ruthlessly crushed and the grievances ignored.
The government’s main priority was not as much the economy (nowhere more clearly demonstrated by the admission that $15 billion diamond revenue went missing) and the people it benefits as it was their hold on power.
Power requires money, and in an economy running out of it, government officials have little option, but to use methods of predation to acquire it for personal aggrandisement and for the State.
Zanu PF and Zimbabweans 2016 Christmas holiday
The year’s reports are replete with stories of the abuse of funds in government departments and parastatals.
But most prominent for me was the mopping-up of people’s US dollar earnings and replacing them with bond notes, compromising even the viability of the large informal sector, many of whose customers are civil servants.
The State severely restricted people’s capacity to import by limiting access to foreign exchange and using Statutory Instrument 64.
Monopolising access to foreign exchange, Zanu PF spent it on, for example, the conference held in Masvingo that cost $4 million to do the obvious: recognise Mugabe as their 2018 presidential candidate.
To achieve this, they purchased, at huge foreign exchange costs, some 375 vehicles for their forthcoming campaign.
Mugabe’s Zanu PF prioritised the purchasing of top-of-the-range vehicles for its campaign ahead of civil servants’ December salaries and bonuses.
Other missed opportunities may even include how it chooses to celebrate its leader’s birthday every February.
I strongly suspect that by then, many civil service bonuses for 2016 will still not have been paid.
Working without pay, as a 2015 Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe report suggests, is wage theft.
The government irresponsibly also bloated its civil service to satisfy patronage expectations as it created unnecessary portfolios to reward elites, for example, the Ministry of Psychomotor Activities.
According to the 2016 United States Agency for International Development strategic economic research and analysis (Zimbabwe [SERA] programme) report on wage structure and labour costs, the government wage bill inevitably exceeds 70% of government expenditure.
Best practice suggests that it should not exceed 30%. Ghost workers, many of whom are part of this patronage network, add further stress.
The declining private sector meant to absorb a huge labour force and make important tax contributions is severely compromised by an economy so battered that it is shrinking and losing many jobs.
But even then, instead of using available funds to settle the public sector wage bill, Zanu PF prioritised party campaign vehicles and other expenditure ahead of the salaries of many civil servants who went without pay over the Christmas holidays, with the exception of those who bear arms.
These government leadership’s actions are like the proverbial Grinch that stole Christmas.
While the hopeful and even unpaid Zimbabweans, including the compromised informal traders and the unemployed, still tried to enjoy these holidays by focusing on family and a sense of community which allowed them to celebrate the birth of Christ despite trying circumstances, some basic necessities, which are a prerequisite for existence, were missing.
Thinking more about next year’s financial commitment of school fees, stationery and uniforms, or even how many will get through January, Zimbabweans at home and abroad only have each other to depend on and give thanks about as the Zanu PF government prioritises the next elections and their continued hold on power.
Tinashe Nyamunda is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State. He is co-editor with Richard Saunders of Facets of Power: Politics, Profits and People in the Making of Zimbabwe’s Blood Diamonds (Harare and Johannesburg: Weaver Press and Wits University Press, 2016).
