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Zimbabwe’s economic recovery plan

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THE question on everyone’s mind today is: Where are we going wrong?
We have the passion, we have the dream, we have the inner spirit saying,
Yes we can do it, but where are we going wrong?
The Look East policy that has been vindicated recently at The Asia-Africa summit is the jewel in the crown by our politicians in Zimbabwe.
First and foremost, it broke the monopoly and dominance of the Anglo-American corporate companies in Zimbabwe.
They closed their companies and are still closing them to create economic hardships for the workers arm-twisting workers to post a protest vote against ZANU PF, at the same time staving Government revenue to implement social activities and services to the nation.
The Government’s indigenisation policy came about to counter this foreign control on our companies, to give us the assurance that 2008 will not happen again.
I appreciate and welcome the effort by Government to import massive farm mechanisation equipment from Brazil.
It was also good that we adopted the Look East policy, we are eating the fish they are providing us, but we never made a close analysis of how they managed to be fishers and yet in the yester years, they like us, were also consumers of fish provided to them by the West.
Now we are also eating fish from Brazil.
When are we going to start fishing our own fish?
Surely, when?
I wish to pose the same question to you technocrats and artisans who only wish to be employed; why not begin to create employment?
We have historians, researchers, economists, political scientists, sociologists; why are they not being used to make case studies of how other former colonies in the East broke through?
India is of interest to note because it went through what we are going through, but now it is an economic giant.
Its corporate companies are buying companies in Europe, Africa and everywhere.
They are a member of BRICS.
Also note, China is now the biggest economy in the world, but how did it break through.
It was once called the land of bicycles.
Were they importing farming equipment as we are doing today?
My aim is to challenge ourselves and ask where we are going wrong.
Citing India’s period of sanctions soon after gaining their political independence, Mahatma Gandhi could have been India’s most successful lawyer, could have been the First Prime Minister of India, but something moved him from pursuing public office, wealth and self glory to become a policy advisor to the new Indian government.
Once at a rally, he provoked the Indians, “We say there is no employment in India, look at the shirt you are wearing, was it not made in Manchester?
“If we burn all the shirts made in Manchester, we are going to make our own and create employment.”
Now India is one of the biggest manufacturers and suppliers of textile.
China is the biggest exporter of pioneer Changfa engines.
Back home, the Rhodesian regime under sanctions formed the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to venture into technology transfer and import substitution.
Instead of countering the illegal sanctions with vigour, we are cry babies looking for investors to reopen these companies and in the processes, mortgaging our resources to external corporate companies.
We are lacking leadership among the technocrats to say let’s make the drawings and start fabricating.
In Shona we say “Kugadza nhaka huona dzavamwe”.
We learn history to be knowledgeable on how other failed or managed a situation.
The biggest challenge we have in Zimbabwe is transparency.
In China, the economy is being driven by parastatals.
In the same manner, the Rhodesian regime economy was being driven by parastatals.
We have destroyed the parastatals institutions that were inherited name it, GMB, NRZ, Air Zimbabwe, POSB, IDC, ZESA, COTCO, ARDA etc
How is China managing to control corruption?
India, big as it is, managed to overcome sanctions.
How?
They employed transparent systems in the distribution of the little that was available.
They employed coupons to enable each family house hold to purchase the basic necessities, sugar, cooking oil, fuel, salt, soap, floor, etc;
In Zimbabwe, we do not have economists, but we employed the first come first serve (Jambanja) system.
There was chaos in the distribution of the basic necessities in 2008.
We used the police to control mobs struggling to purchase these basics and in the process we created corruption.
Lack of transparency has been one of the major contributory factors that destroyed food security in Zimbabwe, the Jambanja policy at GMB.
Some farmers are getting preferential treatment and getting paid for their maize deliveries ahead of poor villagers who delivered their maize at the same time last season.
The people are saying yes we are under sanctions, but the little available, let there be transparency.
The preferential treatment of the few must be stopped.
Focusing on the farming equipment from Brazil, yes we can import tractors and other sophisticated equipment, but there are certain items like disc harrows, ploughs, irrigation equipment (pumps), pipes, planters, lime spreaders, dam scoopers that can be fabricated locally to revive our industry and create employment.
By comparison, most of our locally fabricated farming equipment is durable and appropriate technology.
Our farmers are saddled with debts paying for equipment that is already obsolete.
The pricing regime for this imported equipment was saddled with corruption and way out of this world.
Recently my investigations revealed that an 85 horse power tractor new, one of their best is costing about US$13 000
The landing cost could add up to US$16 000.
The farmers were charged more than double the cost price, in some cases three fold.
I wish to wind up with a Quote, “Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible. But statesmanship is to make possible tomorrow what is impossible today. Changing the attitudes of people does just that.”

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