A GOOD day to you dear reader!
I do hope that you have had a very good week.
Last week I started the first of a two part series on the blessing in disguise brought by the sanctions.
I know that this is an issue that many of us dread to think of because of the suffering that the sanctions have brought.
This is a case I guess of trying to look at the glass as not only half empty, but also looking at it as half full.
So here we are standing on our own home-made policy 34 years after independence.
We have been forced as a country to innovatively come up with survival tactics in the face of adversity.
Back in the day when there were no sanctions and we were still buddies with the Western nations, our Government used to receive money directly from donors.
Yes, directly into our coffers and we would send this money through to the relevant work that it was earmarked for.
As soon as the Land Reform Programme took place, this so-called privilege was immediately withdrawn.
In our culture we have a mentality of people not having to blow their trumpet when they give.
It is something that reflects very badly on that person’s personality and that is something that we can liken as having happened to our ‘Western friends’.
When we did not do things the way they wanted, they pulled out their funding and then started saying all sorts of slanderous words against us as a nation.
We were called thieves and they said that we could not be accountable for the funds that they had sent over the years.
This was a blatant lie since there is evidence which shows the financial reports sent by our Government were definitely above board.
To cut a long story short, a lot of funding that was supposed to go towards projects such as the reviving of hospitals, building of bridges and roads, was lost overnight.
Our nation became isolated.
We immediately got into ‘survival mode’ and this is one thing that has continued to boggle the mind of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector.
Every time they think we are really going down, they see us rising above the storm.
Currently we have a new economic policy, Zim-ASSET and we would never have thought outside the box had it not been for the sanctions.
At least we know that we are trying to do things our way without prodding from Western nations.
Our policies are now very much contextualised with a lot of concentration being put into sectors that we know have worked and are likely to have potential for us.
Gone are the days of the economic structural adjustment programmes which killed our economies in Africa back in the day.
We now speak of indigenisation.
The other day I was laughing with a friend as we were looking at Borrowdale Brooke and just how many black people we saw going to live there.
I told my friend that I was happy the sanctions had come because they had opened to eyes of black Zimbabweans to see that even they too can also have the finer things in life.
Look around you and try and think back to the period before the sanctions.
How many black people worked in high level positions and how many actually owned the companies.
We are still learning to perfect the art of managing businesses, but I know over time we will have mastered it.
However, for how long would we have continued to work in blue collar jobs under the white person if there were no sanctions?
The answer is very simple, for all eternity.
We are stronger and we continue to rise above adversity.
Yes there are many who have also continued to manipulate the sanctions to their advantage so as to keep Zimbabwe down.
In this regard I speak to the NGOs who continue to climb the ladder on the backdrop of Zimbabwe’s suffering.
However, what they mean for evil, is being turned for good.
Of course, we have our problems, just like any country, but believe it or not, we are some of the most resilient and peaceful people on this earth.
We continue showing a fortified front and greater days are ahead of us as a nation.
As for the NGOs; all I can say is that they ought to be very careful because very soon, the clock for their existence is coming to an end.
They will soon find themselves with no work to report.
For now, we wait as a country and continue building empires and creating jobs. Aluta continua!