Welcome to the patronage order of Zimbabwe

By Vince Musewe

Patronage is a curse, a cancer that spreads quickly and is very difficult if not impossible to remove without killing the patient.

I am not surprised at all on the latest revelations that our infamous tax man, Gershem Pasi, has a stake in a company where he directed taxpayer’s funds in a clear conflict of interest. That is not new at all in Zimbabwe.

We have many ministers who have business interests which place them in conflict of interest positions, but remember that term “conflict of interests” is rather foreign and does not exist in the ZANU (PF)’s vocabulary.

It is preposterous that the tax man can behave in such a manner and still keeps his job. That is how a predatory state operates. In my books, Mr Pasi should have resigned or should be fired immediately.

This of course comes just after the President promised in his recent State of the Nation address, that he would deal thoroughly with corruption. Well, I advise my judicious readers not to hold their breath on that one.

Political scientist Alex de Waal of the World Peace Foundation has used an interesting term which he calls the “political market place” where this is a system of contemporary governance, characterised by pervasive patronage in the form of exchange of political loyalty or cooperation for payment.

The political market place in Zimbabwe is characterised by pervasive patronage in all state institutions, and to a certain extent in the private sector, where conflict of interests are disregarded. Mr Pasi is therefore only doing what he has seen works in this environment.

You see, in the ZANU (PF) mind-set it is acceptable to use your position or state resources for personal benefit. In fact you would be viewed with much suspicion if you did not do that because everyone else does it.

I remember once we had a minister of transport who owned a fleet of haulage trucks and went ahead to delay the resuscitation of the railways in his route because he stood to lose business to the railways despite its enormous benefits to the economy.

This happens every day in Zimbabwe and is now normal.

After all our President owns a business despite the inherent conflict of interest that would arise. Remember we also had a Reserve Bank governor who borrowed extensively from the banks he was meant to supervise.

The business environment in Zimbabwe is toxic and corrupt. The reason why this is so, is because it serves the dictatorship well and protects his throne from contenders.

Through patronage Mugabe has built a predator cabal that surrounds him and insulates him from any threat. This cabal benefits from the crumbs he may throw at them from time to time to keep them interested in his continued rule.

He will even leave his minions to err as Pasi has. He delibrately ignores them for a while, as if he doesn’t know, only to use that information later when he needs it to purge the ranks of these heartless scoundrels who surround him. The sad thing is it works all the time!

In such an environment it is difficult to attract ethical or principled foreign investors. What then happens is that we tend to attract the world patronage order who quickly partner with the local predatory cabal to exploit our resources.

That has happened in our mining sector, for example, where we continue to attract dubious characters as long as they accept the politics of the day. That is why we hate the West and accuse them on interfering with the workings of our looting machine (termed sovereignty).

I fear for investors such as Aliko Dangote actually, but I am sure he is well schooled in the politics of patronage given what he had to do in Nigeria to get where he is.

One thing that continues to amaze me is how such a huge investor can come to Zimbabwe and only talk to politicians. In my opinion, he should have spoken to local business people or organisations such as CZI or ZNCC and not political sharks who no doubt are drooling at the prospect of getting a piece of the action. Of course Dangote is welcome to Zimbabwe.

We desperately need plenty of investors like him here. However, we should treat all investors like he was treated including suspending indigenisation.

I also question why a whole cabinet should sit to approve an investment deal. Surely this can be done by the so called “one stop shop” investment centre? Welcome to the patronage order Mr Dangote and I hope your stay here is pleasant!

In the Zimbabwe we are going to create, we will have a clear separation between politics and business. You can’t play both because this always results in a conflict of interests.

In addition the government will have nothing to do with business deals, this breeds corruption and rent seeking behaviours. In my opinion, we really have to start from scratch in building a new business community in Zimbabwe.

Our values have hit rock bottom. If there is any damage that this dictatorship has done to us, it is not monetary but pshycological. It has instilled a false fear in most amongst us and created a class of greedy uncscrupulous citizens who will do anything to make a quick buck.

Weve got work to do!

Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on [email protected]