What is to be our attitude towards drama queens?

By Ken Mufuka

MY FRIENDS have been refusing to talk to me recently for fear that I may dwell on sensitive subjects (zvisingabatwe nevachenjeri). This then poses the question. What is to be our attitude towards the drama queens of Zimbabwe.

A drama queen is a someone who brings into the limelight issues which are either small or should have been kept under wraps. That of course causes untold pain to the wise, who feel that such issues are best resolved behind doors.

I refer to the beloved drama queens in ZANU-PF. The only aspect I have appreciated is their inventiveness and love of dress fashions.

I think my supreme sisters, Opah Muchingura, First Lady Grace Mugabe, and others have struck an affirmative nerve with their dress rehearsals. I have ordered a fancy shirt from Temba Mliswa with Sister Grace’s face on it. I think I will look very cool in it.

Be that as it may, the drama queens have camouflaged the real problems of Zimbabwe which need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

The December ZANU-PF conference would make a monumental mistake if they were consumed by side-issues and failed to address the following issues.

All the economic thinkers I have met or whose views are accessible in print have told me that Zimbabwe needs a new atmosphere in order to attract investors.

These investors need not be foreigners, because we have 3,5 million Zimbabweans who are desperate to come home. The issue here is how and what can be done to accomplish this. We know that imperialists do not give up, and their condition is a new face of government.

A new face does not change the investment climate. A lot can be done without changing the face of government. These, however, need to be done in a series so that the world (and the diaspora) will know that we have changed our ways.

Transparency International has placed the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) at the top of the most corrupt organisations in the world, above Nigeria by two points. Simple steps can be taken.

Police roadblocks give the impression of a country under emergency. It scares visitors; these visitors give us a bad name.

Only three years ago, the ZRP was the most kindly police in Africa, full of Zimbabwean humour, always willing to assist.

Today, a journey from Harare to Bulawayo takes two hours at police roadblocks. Gonyet drivers are allowed US$100 each trip for “smoothing their way.” Zimbabweans should look at themselves as the jewel of Africa.

Ken Yamamoto of the Japan Africa Institute says that the new “offer letters” to “grab farms” are no substitute to title deeds and are worse than useless. Grain control measures contradict free market principles.

Farmers should be able to sell or buy to and from whoever is willing to do business with them. Controls are the basis for police corruption, as the temptation to grease their hands is ever tempting.

If ZANU-PF has any sense at all, a transformative decision should be made sooner rather than later.

In a re-evaluation of the Zimbabwe economy, do we want to be like the rest of Africa, outside South Africa where economies are largely “street economies?”

Somebody, somewhere, made the decision to turn the Zimbabwean economy into a street economy. One can travel for 10 kilometres from Bulawayo on the South African interstate highway to Monomotapa Hotel, without seeing a space that is unoccupied by vendors.

Informal businesses are the riskiest enterprises in the world. They come and go within weeks, their capital is slippery, and their markets are worse than slippery as the ZANU-PF party song, Tamba wakachenjera, ZANU inokutambisa sinjonjo.

The idiom implies that ZANU-PF is like a lottery, there are few winners. Anybody who has a wife and children prefers a job with some predictability, a pension, health clinic nearby, school fees and some holiday time in the village.

It is easier to corrupt a society than to clean it up. Zimbabwean society is now intensely corrupt. Corrupt societies attract disadvantageous investment through bi-lateral agreements between state sponsored actors.

These actors like Gulf Oil in Angola are conscious of instability to such an extent that their investments are placed on a five-year plan,isinjonjo, tamba wakachenjera. It implies that they must recoup their total investment within five years, in readiness for a quick getaway in case of instability.

Stability is an atmosphere, stupid! It has nothing to do with actual fighting. Zimbabwe is as peaceful as any country in the world and the government’s authority is undisputed. So, why are investors, including our own in the diaspora scared?

Our education system has been resilient beyond measure, but stresses are showing everywhere. I was not aware that Budiriro Trust, with 300 000 high school students on their help list was funded from Britain.

Local mining and agro-companies, if released from the five-year instability cost, and assured that they are permanent players in society, should take up the slack. Most African countries have adopted the idea of a council of elders.

Nothing that I have heard or seen so far has any effect on our lives at all. The elders, in their wisdom, should not allow the ZANU-PF conference to be hijacked by peripheral dramas.  When people leave the conference, they should ask themselves. Where will my child work? That must be our attitude towards these tempestuous debates.

You can email Ken Mufuka on [email protected]. This piece was originally published in the Financial Gazette