THE foreign-owned ‘papers’ are at it again as expected, lying to the people of Zimbabwe regarding why we are having tremendous challenges in our economy today.
They preach day-in-day-out their old and tired gospel that blacks cannot run the country’s economy well, therefore the former colonial master must come back in one way or the other and fix the economy for us.
The colonial master must come back and run our farms, mines, industry, commerce and our churches, they say.
In this article we are going to once more tell the people of Zimbabwe that you are being fooled when you are told that our economy is not firing simply because the country is now being run by blacks.
The truth of the matter, however, is that the former colonial master in his various shapes and sizes keeps on sabotaging our economy every time he sees that we are about to fly.
After all, he was part and parcel of the creation of our economy and knows all the devilish tricks to destroy it.
In our discussion below, we are going to use an article titled ‘Sticking to the fundamentals’ which appeared in the Zimbabwe Independent of June 2 – 8 to show that: l the foreign-owned press, as well as the imperialist press in general, will always lie about what the true causes of the present economic problems in the country are and; l that the imperialists and their running dogs here always feverishly undermine all the clever projects we embark on to revive the economy like ‘Command Agriculture’ so that we will never take off and fly to prosperity.
The above mentioned article was penned by one Eddie Cross. We all know him very well.
And for all the wrong reasons, of course!
He is the poor fellow who was in charge at one time of a company called The Beira Corridor Group which he completely failed to run, leading it to its bankruptcy.
Now, he wants to tell Zimbabweans that he can run the country’s economy better than everybody else, including the ZANU PF Government.
It’s like being assured by a useless athlete who has failed to run up to the summit of an ordinary anthill on the veld telling you that he can run up to the summit of Mount Nyanga non-stop in five minutes.
Now let us listen to Cross who portrays himself as a new Messiah and saviour of Zimbabwe’s economy.
But before we have even gone anywhere, we realise that this man cannot be a Messiah or saviour because he loves to tell falsehoods. Just listen to what he says below about the situation that obtained on the ground when we got our independence.
“When we obtained our Independence, China was just starting its spurt to middle-income status. We were halfway there with a highly diversified economy, a balanced budget and educated and hard working population. We were far ahead of China in 1980.”
Now here is the mother of all falsehoods.
When we got back our independence, Zimbabwe was coming out of a devastating war.
A big number of our people were coming out of ‘Keeps’, the so-called ‘Protected Villages’, with no property to their name. Very very poor.
No cattle. No goats. Nothing.
Even those who were not in Keeps were going back home to burnt-down villages.
The Rhodesian economy at that time was a war economy and not a diversified economy as Cross alleges.
It was riddled with war debts, with a poor population.
Can Cross tell Zimbabweans why the Rhodesian economy was exporting raw chrome, for example, if their economy was diversified and ahead of China?
China was already value-adding chrome all the way to the end when the Rhodesians were exporting all their chrome from the Dyke to the world. Why, for example, are we still struggling to establish a platinum refinery plant today if the so-called ‘diversified’ Rhodesian economy could process it?
Why did we have almost all our products, except maybe Mazowe Orange Crush and tissue paper labelled ‘Made in England’ and ‘Zuid Afrika’ (Zuda) if the Rhodesian economy was diversified and developed as Cross alleges?
You had mundane things like razor blades, ball-points, pencils labelled ‘Made in England’.
Even bicycles were made in England.
If a product was not made in England, then it was made in apartheid South Africa.
One of the reasons Zimbabweans have this negative culture of wanting foreign-made goods is because the Rhodesian regime ran an economy which relied on importing things from South Africa or England which made people think from generation-to-generation that things were only made outside the country, in England.
Therefore if things were produced locally they were not good enough.
To say poor Rhodesia was ahead of China is a complete falsehood. When we got our independence, China was already producing ferrochrome products and its own car when Rhodesia was importing ‘rulers’ from England.
And to cap it all, China was already a nuclear power while the best bomb the Rhodesians could throw at freedom fighters was the 25 pounder imported from Britain which was inferior to the 82mm mortar shell in the hands of freedom fighters donated by China.
Poor Rhodesia was nowhere near China at our Independence.
At Independence the Rhodesian racists did not hand over an educated populace to ZANU PF as Cross alleges.
There was only one Form Six school for blacks in the whole of Harare and one for Bulawayo.
The University of Rhodesia had a tiny black student population — maybe the same population like a big crèche in Harare today.
The educated population we have in Zimbabwe today is due to the great work the ZANU PF Government did in the last 30 years.
Sorry Mr Cross!
You can no more fool Zimbabweans by dishing out false Rhodesian history.
Then there is this attempt by Cross to distort and tarnish what command agriculture means.
He falsely defines ‘command economy’ by saying, “no one can command farmers to do anything. Stalin tried and failed miserably.”
Now here is falsification of sickening proportions of what command agriculture means.
Command agriculture has nothing to do with commanding farmer A to grow maize or beans, when, where and how. Not at all.
It simply means the state in conjunction with private sector helping economic players like farmers with resources to carry out their job. Simple. There is no force used whatsoever in command agriculture.
I do not know of any successful agricultural economy, for example, in the world where there is not some kind of command agriculture.
Cross himself knows fully well that the successful Rhodesian tobacco agriculture was 100 percent based on the command economy concept.
Now, why should the command economy be bad for us today if it was good for Mr Eddie Cross when he was in Rhodesia?
The answer is simple. He does not want Zimbabweans to succeed.
He knows that with command agriculture, Zimbabwe is going to fly to prosperity.
Cross also preaches another falsehood.
He says: “Money knows no ideology – just fundamentals.”
False!
Ask our brothers and sisters in South Africa and they will tell you that money, especially Western money which most of us rely on because our economies are tied to Western economies, knows ideology.
Recently the ANC Government in South Africa announced that they had adopted a new ideology – ‘radical economic transformation’ in order to achieve their national democratic revolution.
Before they knew it, the Western rating agencies downgraded the country to ‘junk status’, meaning no more Western money going to South Africa again for investment until they abandon their new ideology.
That is the truth. It is therefore false to say money does not know ideology. Western money is very sensitive to ideology.
In our country, most of our economic challenges have been due largely to sabotage activities by imperialists through their surrogates.
Imagine. Sanctions have cost this country US$42 billion dollars.
In such a situation why should anyone be surprised that we have challenges in the economy. Why?
Finally, this is anti-command agriculture nonsense of the worst order from Cross.
He says: “The reason for the better maize crop (this year) is not any command given by a minister but a producer price that is higher than in any country in the world.”
False again.
The price of US$396 per tonne for maize was not set starting this year. It was there last year and the year before.
If the price of US$396 was the silver bullet this year as he claims it to be, why didn’t it help create the millions we have reaped this year, last year and the year before?
The truth of the matter is that even a Zero Grade pupil will tell you that the tonnes and tonnes of maize reaped this year were due mostly to command agriculture.
Cross does not like it. Sorry Mr Cross! But this is the truth.
And it is very wrong to say that we are still going to import maize this year.
No ways!
We are not going to import any maize this year.
We are in fact going to export maize to countries like Kenya.
Zimbabweans, ignore the likes of Eddie Cross. The only way forward now is Command Economy.