THREE official documents published in recent weeks paint a different, but fundamentally depressing pictures of Zimbabwe’s economy. All pose more questions than answers, leaving readers to ponder the meaning as well as the motivations underlying these assessments.

The first – a brief end-of-mission report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team that assessed the Staff-Monitored Programme (SMP) – comes closest to telling it how it really is. Since it was no more than a gloomy media statement, only when it is fleshed out in a published report, will it be possible to pass judgment.

The SMP published in May was very optimistic. The targets – unambitious as they are – were never likely to be achieved. The increase in government employment costs was going to be kept to 18%, reserve money growth to 10%, with real gross domestic product (GDP) expected to decline only 2,1%. All have been missed and IMF officials who in May put the odds of success at more than 50%, now apparently suggest that the completion odds have slumped to 15%.

Since that prediction, government has gone against IMF advice in tightening currency and exchange controls with a series of confused and contradictory measures, including criminalising some foreign currency dealings. In the process, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube’s already-tarnished reform credentials have been left in tatters.

Quite what IMF executive board members make of this, we will probably never know, but someone should be asking questions about the IMF’s “culture of optimism”. Should the fund staff try harder to get their projections more accurate rather than playing to their client’s gallery?

Perhaps, the assessment when published will inject the necessary realism, but don’t hold your breath.

At the other end of the scale is the second document – the Treasury’s Pre-Budget Strategy, replete with unrealistically optimistic forecasts, based on a combination of political opportunism and dubious, if not nonsensical, economics.

The figures are plucked out of cyberspace, asking readers to believe that an economy in which investment will average a mere 6,5% of GDP over the next three years, will grow at an average of (also) around 6,5%. In other words, one dollar of investment will produce another dollar of growth in real GDP.

Normally, the relationship – capital-output ratio – is around four, meaning that a country needs to invest $4 million to grow GDP by $1 million. In Zimbabwe, after decades of underinvestment in plant, machinery, infrastructure and human capital, one would expect the ratio to be well above four.

The strategy document forecasts year-end monthly inflation at 10% falling to a monthly increase of 2,3% by end 2020.

The impossibility of forecasting monthly inflation in 16 months’ time to one-tenth of a percentage point will not be lost of serious analysts. In effect, Treasury officials are saying: “We are not to be taken seriously.”

Nor should they, especially since the team responsible for the forecast is the same one that a year ago promised 22% average inflation in 2019, now adjusted to 150% or so, and real GDP growth of over 3%. In the event, every single one of the Treasury’s published budget highlights for 2019 has been missed.

Ncube has banned the official publication of annual inflation figures on the grounds that they are misleading which, given the plethora of misleading forecasts that he has produced in just one year in office, is deeply ironic.

The strategy puts 2019 GDP growth at -6,5% which is a great deal more realistic than its earlier forecast of minus 2,1% in the SMP, but still probably short of the mark. Nominal GDP estimated at some $93 billion in the SMP is raised to $114 billion. In 2020, it will grow 4,6% in real terms and 84% in nominal terms, meaning that inflation will average at least 75% next year.

Real GDP seldom grows when inflation exceeds 30% to 40% a year, which is another solid reason for questioning the growth forecasts. Official optimism is based on better rainfall, recovery in aggregate demand and improved macroeconomic stability and foreign currency availability.

Significantly, the word investment is not mentioned. Perhaps Treasury really believes that economies grow without investment?

Internal inconsistencies abound. GDP is forecast to grow 4,6% while imports – in United States dollars – rise only 5,5%. Given the degree to which growth in 2019 has been constrained by forex shortages, the numbers do not add up.

The “improvement” in the balance of payments – from a deficit on current account of US$1,4 billion in 2018 to $238 million this year and only $11 million in 2020 is the assumed product of import compression and a modest recovery in exports, underpinned by US$1,4 billion in humanitarian assistance and diaspora remittances. This, of course, is no platform for the promised upper middle-income economy in a decade’s time.

The strategy claims that the economy has been strengthened by what it calls “mono currency reforms”. Quite how the current contradiction-ridden system qualifies as a mono currency is not clear. Upwards of 40% of bank deposits are held in foreign currencies – a rough measure of dollarisation. The proportion was a mere 3,6% at the start of the year, suggesting re-dollarisation rather than a mono currency.

Then there is the official insistence that a growing variety and number of official transactions must be carried out in US dollars. The energy regulator, Zera, publishes official prices, using two different exchange rates – a subsidised one for the cost of fuel imports and a market one for Zimra fuel duty. A mono currency with multiple and arbitrary exchange rates? Quite interesting!

Although there is no objective evidence to prove it, the reality is that employees would far rather be paid in foreign currency than the local currency. All of which means that the frequent references to mono currency have more to do with propaganda than economic reality.

The strategy refers to improved macro-economic stability – an assessment starkly at odds with 300% annual inflation and 93% currency devaluation. It falls back on GDP ratios to justify the claim that the fiscal situation is on the mend, but yet again, the reality is very different.

In the budget, a year ago, spending was put at $8,2 billion, of which half was for employment costs and a quarter for what Treasury likes to call “capital expenditure”, which includes handouts for Command Agriculture, which are subsidies not investment. All of these were stated as US dollars, which as since conceded in the SMP, they were not.

A year later spending, revenue and the deficit have more than doubled in Zimbabwe dollars, but as a ratio of GDP the deficit has declined enabling the authorities to claim that the fiscal balance has improved. Since the forecast GDP is no more than a shot in the dark based on inflation numbers which the Finance minister says are misleading anyway, this is just another very dubious claim.

The third document – the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report – makes unhappy reading for different reasons.

The country, ranked 127 out of 141 economies, remains stuck close to the foot of the league table where it has been for 20 years. With a score out of 44,3 out of a possible 100, Zimbabwe is slightly below the average for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole and behind eight Sadc member States.

Those who believe that it makes sense to try and maintain the local currency at par with the rand need to reconcile this proposal with the yawning gap between South Africa’s ranking (60th) in the Global Competitiveness table and Zimbabwe’s position of 127.

Strikingly the country scores best in the realm of private sector activity and worst where the State is in control. The country is ranked bottom of the class (141) for trade openness, 138 for labour market flexibility, 137 for property rights, 134 for public sector performance and 133 for corruption.

On the upside, it is in the top half of countries ranked for reliance on professional management, willingness to delegate, entrepreneurial culture and attitudes towards risk, and the strength of auditing and reporting standards. It is in the top half also for the impact of organised crime and incidence of terrorism.

A recurrent theme of the report is the need, globally, for a shift from monetary easing – lower interest rates, credit creation and quantitative easing – towards fiscal and structural reforms that will foster increased investment in both tangible and intangible capital with the aim of increasing equality, raising productivity and combatting climate change.

In a country where policymakers and some business leaders focus on production as distinct from productivity, these are crucially important messages for all stakeholders. Some, at least, appear to be getting the message. The pre-budget strategy helpfully draws attention to low productivity in agriculture with maize yields one tonne per hectare for maize against 2,5 tonnes in Zambia and five or more in South Africa. Perhaps Command Agriculture is not all it is made out to be?

The three reports demonstrate that – two years on – the New Dispensation is a busted flush. Few outside the magic circle of Zanu PF heavyweights, President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Ncube apologists and the State media, believe the promises of reform, sustained growth, middle-income status by 2030, “value preservation”, as memorably promised eight months ago by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya, and a new “real” currency in just six weeks’ time.

The reality – growing unemployment and poverty, plummeting living standards, falling real wages, declining capacity utilisation, a collapsed currency, the world’s highest inflation rate, Africa’s worst performing economy in terms of 2019 GDP growth and the world’s third worst after Venezuela and Iran – is light years away from the official narrative.

These are deep-seated structural problems that will not be resolved by the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), especially one that went off the rails months ago. This is acknowledged at the end of the pre-budget strategy which promises two five-year development plans targeting the unreachable upper middle-income status by 2030.

Hopefully, the planners will learn from their mistakes in successive budgets and the TSP. The present is a time for sober realism, especially as the global economy slips back into recession, but that is in short supply in contemporary Zimbabwe where planning is driven by political opportunism, fiscal policy by vote-buying and economic policy by 1970s economic theology.

Tony Hawkins is a retired professor of economics. He writes in his personal capacity

Peter Makwanya

There is no doubt that the advent of social media has revolutionised the communication landscapes and networks. Not only have the worlds apart been brought closer than ever before, with the barriers and bottle-necks that used to characterise free flow of information having been seemingly eradicated.

In a split second, through Twitter, Facebook, microblogging, WhatsApp or photo sharing, communication takes place. Yes, indeed, communication travels with the speed of lightning, social media looks like it’s everything communicators needed. But the main question is, how much is social media empowering and transforming lives of the marginalised.

In simple terms, social media is viewed as a new kind of online media that shares numerous characteristics, including the power to connect, participate, engage communities openly and manage conversations, among a host of many. Yes, these were the original expectations of social media when it invaded the internet.

Social media was supposed to be a utopian model where everyone would communicate anyhow, any time, as they would want and in an environment that gives one the opportunity to do as they like.

But above all, social media is about interactions, community engagement and sharing experiences online as opposed to simply consuming information.

In our societies, there are people who are surrounded by all forms of social media platforms and they don’t seem to know what to do about the information. In the same communities, they are also those people who have a bit of access to social media platforms and can use it in limited ways depending on the depth of their pockets.

We also have the marginalised and periphery lot, who to me, are important and special stakeholders; they have heard about social media, but they cannot access it; some have never heard of it before, but they also want to be empowered and transform their lives too. These are challenges and worrying issues, which need to be corrected. Communication for development through social media is supposed to transform lives, but some communities have been left behind in this unfolding discourse.

While all the people require empowering development information, to save lives, to improve their environment and for literacy purposes, some people never had the chance to access information even that which is outdated or substandard. In this regard, they have not only been left out, but they have been forgotten and thrown into the dustbin of ignorance.

Many development practitioners, government departments and institutions, farmers organisations and laypersons have access to Twitter, Facebook, internet, smart phones, laptops and other online services and platforms which are development-oriented, but they don’t reach out to isolated and marginalised communities. Despite social media for development purposes being assumed to be accessible to everyone concerned, there are lots of communication and procedural gaps involved.

Without the materials and services outlined above, marginalised communities are also expected to use the social media as primary sources of information but they are not even connected.

They cannot network, interact, share and participate, hence they become terribly exposed. Numerous social media users may not see this communication gap because in their majority, they have never used social media for development purposes, but for trivial and recreational purposes.

In this regard, social media for development is supposed to be sufficiently empowering and transforming the development agenda. Marginalised communities suffer the brunt of droughts, floods, famine, diseases and other social and natural vices which they need to have comprehensive knowledge of, before they even strike; but that is not the case.

They have been left out because of poverty, by design or miscommunication. In this view, the power of social media for reaching out and empower target situations, according to their target needs, has been exaggerated and downplayed.

Social media, by its nature, is supposed to be cross-cutting, inclusive, interactive and engaging. But the most important stakeholders who bear the brunt of natural disasters just continue to hear about it and they are yet to make any meaningful contributions. Social media for development is accelerating in other sectors while by-passing in droves, the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalised, and by the time these communities start to realise something on social media, the government will have come up with laws that govern its use and they won’t be in the know.

The other issues which make it difficult for these isolated and marginalised communities to participate in social media interactions, are that, despite the widely held assumptions that there are affordable mobile phones designed for the developing countries, these people are in the gutter and they can hardly afford them.

Even if they were to afford these cheaper mobile phones, they cannot also access solar products for charging these phones.These communities in the gutter are supposed to be nurtured through development-oriented socialisation and dialoguing and be able to connect with other users around them, engaging in critical development topics.

These fundamental issues are not only developmental and empowering in nature, but they need to contribute to the sustainable development goals.Social media for development is different from other ways in which the majority of privileged people participate in it.

This one is used in the backgrounds of poverty, marginalisation and underdevelopment as well as unemployment and biting effects of climate change.

The advantages of mobile phones is that they are powerful and versatile tools of communication with the ability to connect to radio broadcasting.

Radio is an important communication gadget which can appeal strongly to the less literate people, because it can broadcast in their vernacular languages.
In this regard, when we say that everyone is connected and is networking, it is also important to qualify our assertions.

We have communities in dire situations, who need our support and let us realise their existence and worth as well as their potential to contribute and make a difference.

by Everson Mushava

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has been pushed against the wall by its restive workers who have tabled a new salary demand of at least US$475 or its equivalence of $7 267 at the prevailing interbank rate for the least paid civil servant, as inflation continues to gnaw into the local currency and worker’s earnings.

The salary issue it at the centre of today’s crunch meeting between government and workers’ representative body, Apex Council, with workers’ leaders vowing yesterday that they would not settle for anything less than US dollar-benchmarked salaries.

This comes at a time doctors, whose strike enters day 43 today, have been making similar demands to have their salaries pegged at the US dollar interbank rate, a demand Treasury has repeatedly shot down.

“We will stick to our position of US$475 for the October 2018 salary for the lowest-paid worker be multiplied by the interbank rate as is happening with all goods and services,” Apex Council spokesperson David Dzatsunga said ahead of today’s National Joint Negotiating Council meeting.

Government last month offered a 76% salary hike to its workers which they grudgingly accepted, but since the introduction of the Zimdollar in June this year, the economic situation has continued to deteriorate with prices of basic goods skyrocketing, chiefly in response to fuel and electricity price hikes.

Doctors last month rejected a 60% pay hike and have not been reporting for duty citing incapacitation. The Labour Court last week ruled their strike illegal and ordered them to return to work within 48 hours, but in a statement yesterday, the Zimbabwe Hospitals Doctors Association vowed to defy the court order.

“While doctors would want to return to work…they continue to be incapacitated and lack resources to comply with the labour court judgment.”
The doctors also disclosed that only three meetings have been held since they went on strike 42 days ago, casting aspersions on government’s commitment to ending the impasse that has left the public health sector in limbo.

Nurses at various hospitals have failed to report for duty as well, citing incapacitation. Today’s meeting comes as the often divided teachers’ unions are also planning to also meet and plot a joint operation against the Mnangagwa government, a move likely to see the educators downing tools this week.

Executive leaders of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Progressive Teachers Association met last Wednesday to work out modalities of forming a united front.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou confirmed they were meeting other teachers’ unions today.

“We are going to meet today, the NJNC meeting is an attempt to hoodwink the teachers and disrupt the possible unity. Nothing will come out of that meeting. Imagine, the same people (Apex Council) that went to Mnangagwa to request for the return of the Zimdollar now going back to demand US dollar-pegged salaries?”

He added: “We met with Zimta on Wednesday and other unions have asked to be part of the process and we agreed to meet tomorrow (today) to work on modalities of uniting against government over salaries. We have agreed in toto about the urgent need for declaration of national incapacitation,” Zhou said.

“A final meeting would be held tomorrow (today) and thereafter incapacitation may begin. We don’t want a salary increase, but payment of old US dollar-pegged salaries in terms of the current inter-bank rate.”

Rural teachers have already declared a strike starting today, putting pressure on a government that is facing a national shutdown from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions over the deteriorating economic situation in the country.

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

For the past 20 years, we the people of Zimbabwe have endured untold economic and political suffering — unprecedented ever since we attained independence from British colonial rule in 1980 — characterised by the shortage of nearly everything that sustains human life — ranging from foreign currency, our own local currency, fuel, vital medications in our public hospitals, books in our schools, and prices of basic commodities that keep skyrocketing on a daily basis, out of the reach of the majority.

Understandably, various sections of our nation have proffered varied reasons for this unbearable existence — with the government and its allies blaming so-called Western-imposed sanctions, saboteurs and even transitional austerity measures, while the opposition and a large section of the population have placed the blame squarely on the government’s doorstep — citing gross economic incompetence, corruption, political instability and human right abuses.

Of late, however, the Zimbabwe government has been emboldened in its case by the unquestioned support and lifeline it has received from the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) and African Union (AU), who have embarked on an “anti-sanctions” drive — taking the message to the recently held United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York – culminating in planned solidarity demonstrations throughout regional countries on October 25, 2019.

Needless to say, Zimbabwe authorities are on the proverbial “Cloud Nine” as they have found willing allies in their crusade in defending their economic and political performance over the past 40 years.

However, before anyone starts printing Remove Zimbabwe Sanctions T-shirts, we need to take a sober and indepth analysis of these sanctions, as well as exactly what impact they have had on our daily lives as Zimbabweans.

Precisely, how have these sanctions caused untold suffering?Firstly, the question that everyone in the Sadc and AU would be asking is: “What led to the imposition of these sanctions, in the first place?”

After the formation of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in September 1999 — in the wake of the genesis of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis — the Zanu PF government went into panic mode, especially after losing a referendum in its 2000 bid to introduce a new Constitution. With critical parliamentary elections slated in only a few months, the ruling party could see imminent defeat, and thus, embarked on a very violent land reform programme — in which, scores of white commercial farmers and their workers were brutally murdered and forcibly kicked off the land.

This violent campaign was touted as a programme to “correct historical imbalances”, in which a very few white commercial farmers owned vast tracts of land, while the majority of indigenous people were crowded in infertile communal areas. However, this turned out to be nothing more than a well-calculated move to cut off perceived funding from white farmers to the MDC, as well as a means to intimidate any opposition supporters. Furthermore, the land reform programme ended up benefiting only a few party bigwigs with the best multiple farms, and token resettlement of party faithfuls.

Although Zanu PF narrowly won the 2000 parliamentary elections, the brutal crackdown on the opposition intensified barely two years later, with the advent of the presidential election pitting the now late President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and MDC’s Morgan Richard Tsvangirai — which were largely regarded as having been rigged in favour of the former.

This period was characterised by widespread intimidation of opposition supporters, with the climax being the beating up of perceived opponents, burning of their homes, and reported killings.

This is when the so-called sanctions were imposed by Western countries, mainly the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US).
These sanctions were largely travel bans and the freezing of any overseas investments for a targeted group of senior Zanu PF and government officials, and their interests — and had absolutely nothing to do with the ordinary people.

However, despite these seemingly punitive measures, Zanu PF atrocities reached boiling point after the 2008 harmonised elections, in which Tsvangirai narrowly beat Mugabe in the first round — though, officially failing to attain an outright majority to declare him the winner.

The subsequent wave of violence was unparallelled ever since the 1980s genocidal massacre of over 20 000 innocent men, women and children in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.

This ultimately led to Tsvangirai pulling out of the run-off presidential elections, in protest at the violence — culminating in the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) spearheaded by Sadc through South African former President Thabo Mbeki.

In fact, over the preceding years, although human rights abuses continued unabated — targeted sanctions, especially by the EU were substantially watered down — subsequently leaving only Mugabe and his wife Grace — such that, currently, due to Mugabe’s recent death, there are virtually no EU sanctions to talk about.

That is where we find ourselves today. What sanctions are the Zimbabwe government, Sadc and the AU making so much noise about? The only sanctions left are those imposed by the US — the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera) — which were imposed only on 141 entities and senior officials in the Zimbabwe administration largely over violation of human rights, and economic mismanagement.

So, why would Sadc and the AU stand in solidarity with Harare in calling for the lifting of these targeted measures? Have the conditions that invited the sanctions been addressed?

Ever since the 2017 military intervention that toppled Mugabe, ushering in his long-time protégé President Emmerson Mnangagwa, both the human rights and economic record of this once envy of the African continent, has turned it into a shameful image of what being an African means.

As much as Mnangagwa’s so-called “new dispensation” came into the fray with loud proclamations of the respect for human rights and “heaven on earth” economic growth, the situation on the ground over the past two years has been anything, but rosy.

The 2018 post-election period was greeted by the gunning down of at least six unarmed people during protests in Harare, which the subsequently established commission of inquiry led by former South Africa President Kgalema Motlanthe concluded that security forces — deployed to quell these disturbances — were responsible, and that the culprits should be held accountable.

Zimbabwean authorities have done nothing in that regard.Thereafter, in January 2019, more people were reportedly shot and killed during violent fuel price hike protests in the country’s major cities with allegations rife of further intimidation, brutalisation and rape of innocent citizens in their residential areas by suspected State agents.

Again, no one was held responsible with only the alleged violent protestors being brought to book.Furthermore, this year alone, there have been more than 50 reported cases of abductions of opposition, civil society and labour activists with no one being prosecuted for these crimes.

The opposition MDC was barred by the police from conducting any marches or demonstrations throughout the country from their initial intended gathering in August 2019.

Tapiwa Gomo

It is often said that most African nations have, for decades, failed to take off developmentally after political power was handed over to African leaders by the various colonial administrations. While the former colonial powers have effectively been behind the narrative that African leaders are responsible for the persistent poverty in Africa, they have not acknowledged that part of the reason is their continued hold onto the continent’s matters. There is no former colonial power that has completely let go of its former colonies without leaving behind strings that continue to entangle Africa’s efforts to define its development course.

This is by no means exonerating African leadership as they too must shoulder the blame for everything that has gone wrong on the continent. Most of them are aware of some of the reasons why it has not been easy to steer development without rattling former colonial masters who are sometimes guised as international community or global norms. African leadership has remained aloof and chosen the easier way of not challenging the remnants of colonial conditions that continue to siphon resources while stifling growth at the expense of the continent’s growth.

For starters, most of the liberation movements accepted raw deals during the negotiations for independence. In the context of Zimbabwe, there was a clause in the Lancaster House agreement which did not allow the new government to touch land until 1990. This simply meant that the black majority would remain on the fringes as the economic status quo remained untouched and unchanged.

In South Africa, the pre-independence negotiated Constitution, which was later promoted as one of the best, cemented the historical economic imbalances by tightening protection of property rights in a context where several freedoms and rights are assumed to be guaranteed. Freedom to protest poverty by the poor masses is guaranteed, but not to the extent of challenging that which is causing poverty, inequality and lack of access to economic resources because doing so would be in breach of the Constitution.

Similarly, Angola is the second largest oil-producing country in Africa, but most of the oil production is controlled and dispatched to the Western markets, leaving the country with less. This is simply because of some half-cooked agreements signed during desperate historical moments which those in power are not comfortable to challenge and reverse. Oil accounts for 45 to 50% of the national gross domestic product, yet the country has limited say on its major economic industry.

To add on to these mazes, the ability to manoeuvre and entangle from these myriad of challenges is largely constrained by several factors. The rushed membership to global government institutions prescribes certain norms and conditions which tend to protect the interests of the former colonial masters. This is why the chaotic land reform in Zimbabwe attracted global fury, including that of the royals in Britain because their interests were threatened.

These norms also prescribe certain political systems which indirectly usurp African leadership’s ability to take leadership and install a new order. We can add the entire wholesale of credit lines, loans and purported external support which keeps eroding an African leader’s power to make the right decisions and to view their people as enemies once they start protesting. When these are put together, the spirit of State sovereignty is hugely undermined, becomes meaningless and vanishes, thereby compromising the ability of elected governments to make appropriate decisions necessary to develop their countries.

However, lessons drawn from the recent cases of countries that have managed to rise and achieve growth shows that adjusting the political system and drawing up a context-specific political framework underlies emerging and booming economies. Part of the reasons is that a home-grown and context-specific political system tends to empower local leadership to identify national priorities, manage and control their resources without unnecessary external interferences, pressure or being called to order on perceived breaches of global norms. It simply gives States the power to steer their countries towards the right direction.

For example, the Western world has sold the story of how bad China is because it decided to pursue a different route, based on a political system whose objective was to make the country a super power. The Chinese arrogance against Western pressure and its ability to pursue its own agenda is what has made China what it is today. It is not only a major trading partner to those that label it a global recalcitrant, but a major threat to the global status quo. The Chinese story tells us that respect is earned and not given.
Rwanda, an emerging African country, has pursued the same route, but not without criticism.

For some, President Paul Kagame’s leadership is seen as autocratic, while others have credited the same leadership style for keeping Rwanda together after the 1994 genocide and for having played a positive role in terms of the political stability which has allowed the country to focus on economic growth than protests, demonstrations and activism. With his guarded democracy and developmental approach, Kagame is fast taking his country to another level.

And again, while some are crying abuse of human rights, more are now beginning to enjoy the benefits of strong economic growth rates, new business prospects and employment opportunities which together are lifting people out of poverty.

Blessed Mhlanga

OPPOSITION National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) leader Lovemore Madhuku (LM), who is accused of dining with Zanu PF for financial gains, last week told NewsDay (ND) senior reporter Blessed Mhlanga that he is working to ensure that come 2023, neither Zanu PF nor the MDC will be anywhere near the corridors of power. Below are some of the excerpts of the interview.

ND: You attended the funeral of former President Robert Mugabe, a man you spent half your life fighting, but at the funeral wake, you spoke glowingly about him, what motivated you?

LM: Well, opposition was not to Robert Mugabe the person, but opposition was to the politics of Zanu PF and Mugabe merely happened to be the leader of the party. We were making a distinction between Mugabe the person and the Zanu PF system that was led by Mugabe.

ND: Of late, you have been accused of dinning with Zanu PF, the party you have fought against all these years. This has seen some people describing you as a sell-out. Can you comment?

LM: I don’t know what is meant by dining with them, but I am sure you are referring to being in Political Actors Dialogue (Polad). It is not about dining with anyone. Polad is a national dialogue process where political players come together to debate issues to do with Zimbabwe; that is nothing to do with Zanu PF
ND: It’s not only Polad, but you have been in the Motlanthe Commission of inquiry into the August 1, 2018 shootings, is that not dining with Zanu PF when you are getting financial benefits?

LM: There were no financial benefits in the Motlanthe Commission. The commission was very important for our country; it was the commission that found out that the army and police were responsible for killing six civilians on August 1 2018. That was a point that was made by the commission. We recommended that it should never happen again that government is irresponsible in terms of how it deals with demonstrations. We even recommended compensation, so why should the Motlanthe Commission be seen as dining with Zanu PF? The commission was the building block to the future of the country.

ND: You said you were fighting the system. Has the system shifted since Mugabe was removed as President in 2017?
LM: There is no shift, but what has changed is the method of how to deal with the system, dialogue is now the way to go. When we fought the system 15 years ago, we focused more on massive engagements and demonstrations, those things no longer work at this particular time. We need dialogue.

The system has to be fought and we continue to fight it, but we have to change the methods. So there are people who are totally lost when they look at us adopting a different method as if we have given up. Why would we give up? We have created massive movements. Those in MDC Alliance believe that the person who is fighting for democracy is the person in the MDC Alliance. That is nonsense. What you have to take into account is what are people doing in their various stations. When we fought against Zanu PF, we were fighting against one-party domination and we will also fight against a two-party domination.

Domination and oppression does not change because you have increased the number of players. Where I stand, I am contributing to a situation where we have a real genuine multi-party environment of more than three parties.

ND: Is there a new dispensation in Zimbabwe?
LM: There is no new dispensation. Currently, there is a dispensation that has been going backwards. They have gone behind what we had in the 1980s. Our current leaders are trying to learn the bad portion of their old days. The bad portion of the old days were characterised by the mysterious disappearance of people, the heavy deployment of police and army at the smallest excuse; the old days where you found people in government who had no clue on how to turn around the economy, which is what we have at the moment. We don’t have a new dispensation.

ND: What can be done to change this facade as you call it?
LM: We must invest heavily in conscientising the majority of the people. The way forward is to make people alert of our situation. Those in government still have supporters, you go into a by-election you find out that the majority of the people who turn up to vote still vote for them notwithstanding the economic hardships, notwithstanding political repression – that is the problem we have in the country. It is not just about turning around and making this work, but it is about educating and conscientising our people so that they realise that they have a solution when the election comes.

ND: There are people who thought that burying Mugabe would also be burying the old habits, do you agree?
LM: Not at all. We buried Mugabe the individual, not the system. We know that his departure has no relationship whatsoever with the changing fortunes of our country. The change of fortunes of our country depends on how we deal with the system.

ND: Some say that the opposition is too divided – we have a lot of opposition parties – this is why they cannot dislodge Zanu PF; talk of a multiplicity of parties, how do we reconcile that?

LM: That is ignorance, it is not about the number of political parties, it is not about divisions; divisions take place when people cast their votes. But that again depends on the campaign. When people are given four, five or six choices and they have convincing arguements, they will be able to vote correctly. You need parties so that we avoid only having Zanu PF and its policies that are not working and the MDC Alliance, on the other hand, that is made up of arrogant leaders.

ND: Do you think Zanu PF is capable of solving Zimbabwe’s socio-economic problems?
LM: Zanu PF is not capable of solving the current socio-economic problems; we are only talking with Zanu PF because we have a fact of elections that places Zanu PF in the leadership of the country. We are working with Zanu PF in Polad not because we believe Zanu PF has the solution, but because the people have forced us to work with them.

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

ZIMBABWE Youth in Tourism patron, First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa, has called on African countries to synchronise their tourism, trade and investment policy frameworks to take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

In a speech read on her behalf by acting Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry minister Nqobizitha Ndlovu at the Africa Youth in Tourism conference held in Bulawayo last week, Mnangagwa said: “There is need to synchronise African countries’ tourism, trade and investment policy frameworks to engineer enabling mechanism to take full advantage of the newly formed African continental free trade area.”

“This calls on Zimbabwe as a major actor in tourism to drive the south regional economic integration to make Africa an optimum destination for Africa. In the process, this will allow plenty of labour and unintended cross border trade of goods and services.”

To date, 27 countries, including Zimbabwe, have ratified AfCFTA meant to create strong economic integration on the continent by forming a single continental market.
It is also one of the largest free trade areas since the formation of the World Trade Organisation, given Africa’s current population of 1,2 billion people, which is expected to grow to 2,5 billion by 2050.

The AfCFTA agreement also has the potential to foster industrialisation and deepen regional value chains.Other benefits include elimination of tariffs in the continental free trade area, meaning that companies will now be able to export many products and be more competitive with the equal pricing of all products in foreign African markets.

The agreement will also remove tariffs that were making exported products cost more, resulting in products becoming less desirable in other markets.Mnangagwa said as a Sadc member, Zimbabwe should ensure that it played a role in ensuring that its tourism sector elevated the region’s economic growth.

She said women and youth should be included in the continent’s economic development.“As you may be aware, as at 2008 to 2018, women in Africa contributed over 56,4% to the continent’s economic development agenda through marshaling food security, mining and cross border trade, among other macro-economic activities,” she said.

“It is important for policymakers to harness the youth demographic dividend in aiding Zimbabwe and Africa’s capacity, securing the ultimate realisation of the cardinal requisite of the investment goal.”

She said the clarion call set before all citizens, the youth in particular, was that of exploiting the given context of liberty to adequately participate in all activities which seek to generate inclusive empowerment across generations.

“In this regard, it is worth noting that the youth constitute a critical mass in decision-making. All avenues advancing the direct appreciation of youth in policymaking must be embraced with a view of championing equitable access to opportunities and resources,” she said.

Mnangagwa said according to a 2017 study capturing the contribution of tourism in alleviating the burden of unemployment in Africa, it was observed that the tourism sector contributed over 90 million jobs for youth and it was gradually expected to generate employment for over 12 million people by 2028.

She said, in line with aspirations of austerity, youth stand to be beneficiaries of the sectoral output as far as the continent strategic human capital is concerned.
“While this information on the prospects of leveraging tourism and hospitality is abundant, there is hesitant contribution of young people’s perspectives on the sector and that on its own is a challenge to advance tourism policy formulation processes,” she said.

The conference, which is held annually, ran under the theme Changing Africa’s future by accelerating investment capacity in youth for sustainable tourism development.