By Dhlayani Chauke
The going is tellingly getting tough in Zimbabwe and signs of desperation in government are there for all to see.
The government is slowly coming to terms with the reality on the ground with the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa conceding recently that the government had to rethink some of its economic policies, in an interview in which he also conceded that the country is lagging behind its peers in the region by up to 15 years in terms of infrastructural, manufacturing and other spheres of development.
Coupled with recent calls by the Ministry of lands for provincial land committees to submit to it names of white farmers whose farm operations can be classified as of strategic economic importance to be awarded offer letters, this can be read to reflect a realisation by the government that the economy cannot be rigged but can only be built on succinct and fair policies.
The land issue remains a poignant thorn in the flesh in Zimbabwe. It is a vital cog in ensuring food security for the country and if utilised successfully can revitalise the Zimbabwean economy.
It is against that backdrop that recent calls by the Lands and Resettlement minister for provinces to forward issue white farmers venturing in strategic exercises in Agriculture are not only reassuring but a positive step in the right direction. The government seemingly has been prodded by dwindling Agricultural produce that has been on a downward spiral since the inception of the land reform programme in the year 2000.
On his recent week long trip to China, Mr. Mnangagwa got a drubbing from Chinese politicians who pointedly told him that it would not be possible to instil confidence in foreign investors intending to invest in Zimbabwe for as long as repulsive government policies are in place.
ZANU PF politicians are known to be arrogant and obstinate and in most cases will never concede that the economy is failing because of their mismanagement but rather because of sanctions which everyone else outside the party knows to be of non-significant harm to the country as they are targeted on Robert Mugabe and his wife.
For a high ranking official like Mnangagwa to concede that indeed some of their policies have been detrimental to the country is a marked climb down from that arrogance we have come to know as the archetype for ZANU PF machoism and grand standing.
With a reported shortfall of about 700 000 tonnes of maize to feed the nation this season, reality is gradually sinking in, and the government recently announced an unprecedented somersault as it openly said that was willing to regularize some white farmers operations by giving them offer letters under the A2 scheme.
Though arguably yields were not good this year as a result of drought, over the years the yields have generally been going down. This is attributable to the disturbances to farm operations that were engendered by the land reform programme that has seen largely incapacitated peasants running down hitherto productive farms.
It is refreshing to hear that at least in 2015 the Zimbabwean government is willing to give the offer letters to farmers regardless of race if their undertaking is regarded as economically strategic.
In as much as such a move is a positive one and in the interest of mending relations with disaffected races in the country, it must be very embarrassing for the government to do that climb-down, coming as it does barely a year after Mugabe impudently declared in Mhangura in July last year that no white person would ever own land in Zimbabwe.
Some of us cringed in consternation and disbelief as Robert Mugabe threatened to banish the white race from farms in the country only this past year. At the time the president said that no white person was allowed to own land in Zimbabwe and the few remaining white farmers were warned to pack their paraphernalia and go.
In the same breadth he sent out a stern warning to newly resettled farmers who had gotten into partnership with white farmers on their newly apportioned land pieces.
It was really shocking at the time to imagine that Mugabe had not seen anything wrong with the shambolic process that had seen the forced removal of white farmers replaced by inefficient black farmers who do not only lack the expertise, capital and infrastructure to gainfully utilise the land but have in fact gone on to cause untold degradation and deforestation in trying to flue-cure the little tobacco they were able to produce.
It is no secret that the white farming community formed the caryatid of Zimbabwe agriculture prior to ZANU PF’s chaotic land reform a decade and half ago.
At its peak food production in what was then called the bread basket of Southern Africa was so munificent that the nation could afford to offload onto the international market more than 2 million tonnes of excess maize, and large quantities of high quality beef that was a favourite in European markets, capped with countless bouquets of beautiful horticultural produce; all that bringing in the all-important foreign currency.
Today it is actually a different story, albeit a sombre one with the country struggling to produce enough for the populace here. A wake up call should have been the fact that the country now has to buy from erstwhile basket cases like Zambia. It is on record that Zambia received with very warm and open arms hundreds of farmers displaced from Zimbabwe.
It would not be going too far to say that the surplus that Zambia is producing today, that which it is able to sell to countries like Zimbabwe, calling the shots and imposing very hostile terms, that surplus is produced by the table and highly gifted former Zimbabwe commercial farmers.
Remember in 2013 when the then Zambian President Michael Sata promised Robert Mugabe that they would supply maize to Zimbabwe on credit and the country would pay later. Sata had to back track later and demand payment up front before any deliveries to Zimbabwe.
Faced with such a sad scenario, the government has to eat a humble pie, it is time to do a self-introspection, to look back, trace and find the missing link and graft it into the equation. Identifying farming enterprises that are of strategic importance to the economy is a first small step in the right direction. But is it not too small and too little and also may be too late. Well, about that time will tell.
If the government follows up the relaxation of its stance on land policy with similar measures in other sectors of the economy then we might be heading for better days. Like what the main opposition party in the land the MDC-T said in the wake of 2013 general elections results, the government seems to have found it out the hard way that the economy cannot be rigged.
When it comes to the economy it’s proper and sound policies that would attract investment.
The manufacturing sector has died a slow but sure death and the indigenisation laws pushed by the ruling party have not helped the situation. On that front however it is refreshing to note that there has been a lot of talk about it without much action regarding the implementation of the laws most notably the 51 percent indigenous ownership of previously foreign-owned companies.
In spite of the government’s cold feet regarding the implementation of the 51 percent local ownership, some companies seem to have lost confidence in our government and have embarked on disinvesting in the country. The announcement by RIO Tinto that it is leaving the country is very worrying and certainly not the best news to hear coming from a country where you got plans of opening up a new shop.
We believe that acceptance is the first step towards solving the problem. For once a high level government official gave a candid interview and assessment of the situation on the ground, I would like to think that it is the right diagnosis of the Zimbabwean problem, and if followed by action surely Zimbabwe can be a success story again.