IT is only a year away from the next plebiscite and the sorry Zimbabweans, who were bombarded by electoral promises four years ago before President Robert Mugabe romped to an overwhelming electoral victory, are bracing for more pies in sky.
BY EVERSON MUSHAVA
The 2013 general elections that ended a five-year coalition government between Mugabe and the two MDC formations by Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube were certainly a galore of promises.
The impoverished electorate, that had long been expecting changes in the country’s economic fortunes, were promised heaven on earth; most of the promises focusing on bread and butter issues for a country that had suffered its worst economic crisis at the turn of the millennium until 2008.
Desperate to win the hearts and minds of the electorate, the 2013 general elections was, indeed, a contest of economic blueprints from both Zanu PF and the opposition parties.
Tsvangirai, luring the youth vote, was brandishing his Job Creation, Upliftment, Capital Investment and Ecology (JUICE) economic revitalisation strategy anchored on reviving industry and job creation.
On the other hand, Mugabe’s Bhora Mugedhe election campaign was anchored on indigenisation, job creation, black empowerment and food security, all packaged under Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation — ZimAsset.
In his election message, Mugabe promised to inject about $7,3 billion in liquidity through the indigenisation of about 1 138 companies across the country’s 14 key sectors of the economy.
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This, according to the ZimAsset blueprint, would enable the Zanu PF government to generate about 2,265 million jobs in the period between 2013 and 2018 to overturn a record unemployment rate hovering above 85%.
Mugabe’s government also promised to build 250 000 low-income housing units for the million homeless Zimbabweans, 1 250 public houses and create 2 500 shell factories, flea and vendor market stands.
About 310 clinics and 300 schools would also be built as well as improvements on the country’s aging road infrastructure to world-class standards and increase salaries for civil servants to above the poverty datum line of $511 per month, among other promises.
But four years after Mugabe’s resounding victory and with another poll beckoning, Zimbabweans are still reeling under a debilitating cash crisis precipitated by the ever-deteriorating economy.
Contrary to the promises, industry has continued to collapse, reversing that gains made by the inclusive.
Poverty has skyrocketed, with many roads becoming impassable, while most health facilities retrogressing to the 2008 era.
According to the World Bank report in 2016, the number of extremely poor people was set to increase to 3,28 million in 2016 up from 3,16 million in 2015, while the number of food insecure Zimbabweans soared to over 4,4 million people by early 2017.
The jobs that Mugabe promised are still elusive four years after his electoral victory.
The once-glorious industrial city of Bulawayo remains a sleeping giant, with most areas turned into industrial cemeteries.
Many former workers, many of them with degrees, have turned into vending, where they are always engaged in cat-and-mouse games with municipal police.
“It is now terrible driving in the city of Harare after normal working hours. The streets will be closed by vendors’ carts. Everywhere there will be vendors selling their wares. People don’t have formal jobs and they want to survive,” one Harare motorist Kudakwashe Huma said.
According to statistics by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, over 100 companies have closed shop since 2014, causing the loss of 10 000 jobs annually.
In 2014, the Registrar of Companies struck off more than 176 companies off the register and deregistered over 634 companies after they failed to take off or stopped business for a long time.
Indeed, the situation is dire in the country and the late Tanzanian strongman, Julius Mwalimu Nyerere, who cautioned Mugabe not to destroy the Jewel of Africa, could be turning in his grave.
Mugabe’s government has also rehashed its widely condemned 2005 Operation Murambatsvina by evicting many residents in Harare and Chitungwiza accused of occupying illegal structures, contrasting Zanu PF’s promise to provide low-income housing and ease the urban national housing backlog that is now spiralling to almost three million.
The over two million jobs Mugabe promised remain a pipe dream and the clueless and corrupt-infested ruling party is still groping for answers to arrest the country’s free-falling economy.
Mugabe’s government, that has been casting aspersions to the MDC coalition partners during the period of the Sadc-mediated inclusive government, has been struggling to pay civil servants since 2013, shifting their pay dates and staggering payments, especially bonuses, time and again.
Mugabe has failed to deal with endemic corruption by his lieutenants, while failure by Zanu PF to improve on its international relations has also continued to block lines of credit to the country to generate the much-needed foreign direct investment.
Taxman Zimbabwe Revenue Authority collections have remained below targets, as companies continue to close down and deprive the economy of tax revenue.
But with elections around the corner, the gullible citizens are set for other mouth-watering promises from Zanu PF.
“Zanu PF’s election promises were a biggest lie that misled the biggest number of people,” political analyst Vivid Gwede said.
“The truth is that most of the promises and pledges were just white elephants and pies in sky, as none of them have been met. Instead of 2,2 million jobs that they promised, we have 2,2 million frustrations as a result of retrenchments.”
He said Zanu PF had failed its own examination and it would, therefore, be meaningless for Mugabe to make new promises when his old promises remained one spectacular pile of failure.
Instead of fulfilling the many promises the party made, Mugabe’s party spent most of their time locked up in bitter factional battles fuelled by the race to succeed the veteran leader, who turns 94 next year when the elections are due and has already been endorsed as the Zanu PF candidate to extend his 37-year rule.
Zanu PF is divided along factional lines, with Team Lacoste doing the bidding for Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over, while G40 is opposed to the VP’s ascendency.
“Zanu PF will make more empty promises, craft new slogans and invent a new manifesto, then pretend everything is okay, as they have always done during the bigger part of their rule,” Gwede added.
He said the ruling party failed to deliver its promises because it diagnosed wrong problems and prescribed wrong solutions because they did not want to face the truth, as witnessed when the party decided to blame sanctions when policy discord in government authored the party’s failure.
“Second, President Mugabe’s age has meant that all the time the focus was on succession related power struggles rather than solving national problems. In few years since 2013, Zimbabwe has seen the most intense and far-reaching political purges and quarrels in government as probably we have never seen since independence.”
Due to succession wars, Zanu PF witnessed the worst policy inconsistencies in years, with Cabinet ministers publicly attacking each other.
First, its Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao squared up with his Finance counterpart Patrick Chinamasa over interpretation of the country’s indigenisation laws until Mugabe was forced to intervene.
Mugabe’s ministers have also squared on roadblocks, with Tourism minister Walter Mzembi publicly condemning the numerous roadblocks in the country, which he said were unfriendly to tourism for a country not in a war situation, setting the stage against his Home Affairs counterpart Ignatius Chombo.
The introduction of Statutory Instrument 64 to protect local industry has also exposed the rifts in Mugabe’s Cabinet along factional lines.
The clashes were also witnessed on the appointment of the new Chief Justice to replace the late Godfrey Chidyausiku, with G40 kingpins Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo and his Local Government counterpart Saviour Kasukuwere critical of new proposed amendments by Mnangagwa to give Mugabe power to appoint Chidyausiku’s replacement.
And Command Agriculture has become the latest battlefield for succession wars between Mnangagwa and Moyo, the latter who accuses the VP of hijacking a government programme for selfish factional ends.
The project, which is likely to be Zanu PF’s trump card in next year’s elections, has been marred by mudslinging from the two antagonistic factions, showing how succession has rendered government dysfunctional.
“The public wars between Cabinet minister means things are getting out of hand. Effort is more on survival of factions than collective government effort to deliver on the party’s electoral promises,” political analyst Alexander Rusero said.
