There is a hauntingly true African proverb that claims that unless the lion learns how to write, every story will always glorify the hunter.

here is a hauntingly true African proverb that claims that unless the lion learns how to write, every story will always glorify the hunter.

Simply put, it means that those who can read, write and effectively communicate their viewpoints can peremptorily shape and own the narrative.

It is their story that is most likely to be believed.

By default, their viewpoints essentially become the worldview.

Impliedly, this also means those who do not read cannot be different from those who can’t read; those who do not write cannot be distinguished from those who can’t write; and people who do not communicate cannot be different from those who can’t communicate.

Bishop Lazi would like to think that although we commemorated 56 years since founding the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – now the African Union (AU) – yesterday, the story of Africa has not been told as yet. In fact, it has not begun to be told.

 Curse of the Blackman

One of the questions the Bishop always faces time and again from his congregants – and which he almost always grapples with – is whether Africa and Africans are a cursed lot.

Or, as Kenyan professor Patrick Lumumba often asks, if Africans are children of a lesser God.

Those who have conveniently appropriated the narrative, particularly the white man, have been telling us over the centuries that this is so.

They even quote Genesis 9:25, which has come to the known as the Curse of Ham.

For the uninitiated, they would have to read Genesis 9:20-27 to better understand the story.

Well, it is a simple story about a drunken Noah – yes, that chap that built the Ark and saved humanity from God’s wrath, which manifested through a deluge.

One day, after partaking the brew, the worse for wear Noah stumbled into his tent and passed out while naked.

When one of his sons, Ham, peeped into the tent, he saw his naked father.

Ham subsequently tells his brothers Shem and Japheth to cover his modesty, but without gazing at him, and they duly complied.

However, when the drunken elder came to and learnt what had happened, he inexplicably cursed Ham’s son, Canaan.

Genesis 9 verse 25 reads thus: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall be unto his brethren.”

And for centuries, the black man has been told that he is a descendent of the cursed Canaan, and his diabolic circumstances are as fate would have it.

Indeed, it might sound, feel and look true, considering that begriming poverty emblazons the continent from Cape to Cairo.

Everywhere and anywhere across the world, the African is a poster boy of dirt-poor poverty.

Yes, you throw a stone anywhere in Africa, you are likely to hit a broke-ass lad.

The Curse of Ham, they would call.

However, the less religious often tell the black man that he is an inferior species and, therefore, inherently incapable of managing his own affairs, which is the major reason for the failure of the African nation-state.

Bishop Lazi thinks that if you are one of those imbeciles who cant or doesn’t read, you are likely to swallow this claptrap hook, line and sinker.

Crime Scene

Well, folks, this continent is a gigantic crime scene of the most egregious heist ever to be visited on humanity.

Research from various scholars tells us that ever since some Portuguese criminals kidnapped two African chaps taking a stroll down the West African coast in 1441 to sell them as property in far away lands, the continent has never been the same again.

It heralded the beginning of 500 years of unremitting theft by the white man.

They stole everything and anything: silver, gold and – most absurdly – people.

Extensive research by Professor Nathan Nunn, a Canadian economist and Professor of economics at Harvard – who examined data from 34 584 slave ships – indicates that more than 12 million Africans were sold off to the Caribbean, Americas and the Middle East to supply labour that built Western capital.

Yes, dear reader, the figure also includes 1 089 Zimbabweans – 554 who were lost through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and 536 who were frogmarched through the Indian Ocean.

The White House, from where Trump continues to happily sign off an oppressive regime of sanctions, was even built by slave labour.

However, the figures don’t include our kinsmen who were tossed off slave ships like rotten tomatoes into the oceans purportedly because they could not make it through their ill-fated journey; most often through ill-health.

But so frenetic was this criminal enterprise that Dr Patrick Manning, an American scholar and specialist in world history, observed that by 1850 Africa’s population was only half of what it would have been had the slave trade not taken place.

But what really is Bishop Lazi driving at?

Well, Prof Nunn’s research pointedly concludes that the poorest countries on the continent today are coincidentally those that were affected by the slave trade the most.

Another American scholar on international politics, Jeffrey Herbst, also observed the same trend.

“Poor economic performance is as a result of post-colonial state failure, the roots of which lie in the underdevelopment and instability of pre-colonial polities,” he said.

No sooner had the slave trade ended in 1838 than another form of slavery was re-invented on the already weakened continent through colonisation, which wrecked Africa in the 109 years from 1885 through to the independence of South Africa in 1994 – barely 25 years ago.

You see, colonialism was slave trade that had gone to private school, and this time it mutated into “forced labour” in mines, farms and households.

So brazen was the looting that in 1894 we even had a company called Matabeleland Loot Rights on the then Salisbury Stock Exchange.

Renaissance

Bishop Lazarus feels that as we celebrate the continent, we still have much to do.

With each new generation the grim history of 600 years of industrial-scale theft perpetrated on Africa continue to fade away because we don’t read it, write it and communicate it in our schools.

Talk of reparations has sadly died and is now considered idealistic.

Our inherited educational and academic institutions continue to produce anglicised blackman, as author Tsitsi Dangarembga would call it in her book Nervous Conditions.

So, unsurprisingly, we have an intelligentsia whose only claim to lofty scholarship is either the ability to speak the Queen’s language through the nose like Chamisa’s spokesperson Dr Nkululeko Sibanda or string a few rhyming idioms like his boss.

They appallingly fall short of solving the greatest innovative, industrial or scientific questions of the day.

Equally sad, the stories, sacrifices and histories of our luminaries like Kwame Nkurumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Agostinho Neto continue to fade with each new generation.

And the stories of Dumiso Dabengwa – may his soul rest in peace – remain untold.

This is simply because the African lions are not reading, writing and telling their stories as they should be.

We need to collectively declare an all-out war on poverty through industrialisation, innovation and modernisation.

Africa has to rise!

Bishop out.

Ranga Mataire
Writing Back

A few days before Africa Day, Zimbabwe lost one of its illustrious sons – Cde Dumiso Dabengwa affectionately known by compatriots as “The Black Russian” or the “Intelligence Supremo”.

One by one, these illustrious sons of our soil are being called by the creator leaving a huge void of institutional memory desperately needed as an inspirational springboard for future generations.

Describing the late nationalist as principled and resourceful, President Mnangagawa said Cde Dabengwa’s heroics rank high among the pioneering generations of early nationalists and freedom fighters.

Summarising Cde Dabengwa’s life history, President Mnangagwa said, “As we mourn his untimely departure, our whole nation is lifted by the story of his life and that of his generation, a story which neatly interweaves with our own story as a people in the struggle for independence and Statehood.”

Herein lies the problem.

Most liberation struggle stalwarts are rich reservoir of our country’s history but very few have taken their time to document their stories so as not only to enrich our struggle narrative but to work as inspirational springboards for future generations.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara has in the past expressed his exasperation about the lack of a writing culture in the country.

Mutambara said it was a tragedy of monumental proportions that former President Robert Mugabe has to date not written a single book about the journey he has travelled thus far.

For the exception of just a few like Joshua Nkomo, Cephas Msipa, Maurice Nyagumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Dzinashe Machingura, Agrippa Mutambara, Fay Chung, Freedom Nyamubaya, Alexander Kanengoni, Edgar Tekere and Edison Zvobgo – there has never been a culture of writing among comrades.

Someone needs to remind these cadres the value of storytelling. Chinua Achebe put it succinctly when he says:

“. . .only the story. . .can continue beyond the war and the warrior.

It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters.

It is the story. . .that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.

The story is our escort; without it, we are blind.

Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us.” – Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987)

While in years gone by we used to have griots that were custodians of a nation’s historiography, the advent of the written word has made it easier for one generation to bestow to the next its experiences, trials and tribulations. It has made it possible to pass on the national memory.

In Achebe’s words, the written word is beautiful in that when handed down, it gives us a second handle on reality. We need as Africans in general to learn something from Achebe’s advice for it is true that the written and literature in general have both social and political importance.

The written word is much more than a creative ornament in that it provides a necessary critical perspective on everyday experience, educates us on the meaning of our actions and offers us greater control over our social and personal lives.

We need to develop a culture of writing for such a culture serves a dual purpose.

It educates both Africans and other nationalities wishing to have a better understanding of us as a people and also reinstate a sense of pride in African cultures. By documenting their own personal histories and contribution in the liberation of the country, nationalists like Cde Dabengwa would not only be helping society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of years of denigration and self-debasement.

Imagine how much of knowledge and history we would have lost if Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Almicar Cabral, Malcom X, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Thomas Sankara and even Muammar Gadaffi had not written anything about their lives, their philosophies, inspiration and general perspective on a number of issues.

The written word is important. It is the written word that to this day still inspire millions of people who follow Jesus Christ for his word is enshrined in the Holy Bible.

It is sad that Cde Dabengwa has passed on without having authored his memoirs. His death must surely be a wake-up call for other nationalists, freedom fighters and the general populace in documenting their stories for future generations.

We need to continue writing our stories from our own perspective. No one story is absolute but combined together they enrich an individual and a nation. We need to move away from what Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie calls the “single story narrative” that is mainly manufactured by those who least understand us or have a forked way of looking at us.

We hope local historians like Pathisa Nyathi will take it as a national duty to document the history of stalwarts like Cde Dabengwa – the man whose dedication to his country was unquestionably beyond reproach.  A national icon who sacrificed all for the good of his native land.

A lot of hopes both at home and in the region are now riding on President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, sworn in yesterday for his first full term after leading his party to a clear victory in difficult circumstances.

He starts with a lot of advantages. There is the goodwill and general recognition that he is a competent person with clean hands, the ultimate negotiator, successful in private life as well as public life, and the first South African President since Nelson Mandela more popular than his own party.

But he faces some tough decisions and hard work. South Africa has seen recession rather than growth; corruption had grown to serious levels; crony capitalism, called state capture down there, had emerged as the most serious brake on the journey to a more equal and growing economy and society as business people, local and foreign, started winning wealth based on who they knew rather than on what they could do.

In addition, South Africa is still one of the most unequal societies in the world, despite the modest progress in the quarter century since the advent of democracy. While some have been able to take advantage of the openings, and President Ramaphosa is one of the most successful, far too many have been left behind.

The recent election fired another warning shot, with the more elitist opposition Democratic Alliance losing support, although remaining the largest opposition party, and the populist Economic Freedom Front gaining votes, although few see it as an alternative government.

Corruption and gross inequality are not, of course, unique to Africa. They occur, and have occurred, in all parts of the world. Anyone glancing at the history of the United States, for example, will note that what was going on in the later 19th century and early 20th century dwarfs the worst of Africa and even now there is a lot of concern that the solid wall that is supposed to exist between Donald Trump’s political and national life on one side and his business empire on the other has far too many missing bricks. But just because it happens is no reason to tolerate it and obviously a determined attack on all the dubious dealings has to be a priority of President Ramaphosa, just as it is in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration in Zimbabwe. Defeating corruption is not a sufficient condition for sustainable economic growth, but it is a necessary one.

More generally President Ramaphosa has to get the South African economy moving forward again at a decent clip, something that probably will require a lot of economic reform. This is not just an issue for South Africa. The hopes of the entire region are riding on his success. If easily the largest economy in Southern Africa starts growing fast then the rest of us will find life a lot easier. We need the growing markets in what is the only practical engine of economic growth in our neighbourhood. If South Africans grow richer they will want, and be able to afford, to buy more stuff from the rest of us.

Growth also helps solve many of South Africa’s other endemic problems. For a start fast growth does require far more people able to afford more than the bare necessities of survival. Middle income countries require middle income populations, not a small minority of rich and a vast sea of the poor. One reason China was able to accelerate so fast was because it managed to spread the gains of reform as well as the pain.

Throughout Africa it is these economic issues that now dominate political life. Younger generations are properly grateful that their parents, and increasingly their grandparents, won freedom from colonialism or ethnic domination. But it is not the centre of their political life. They want today’s problems solved. And today’s problems mean they want decent jobs, a decent education for their children, and generally a world that is getting better, not staying the same or getting worse. And they expect the new generation of political leadership to respond. Which they are doing. Economic indices are now examined with an attention to detail missing in past decades.

But sometimes legacy problems are still on the front burner. One that President Ramaphosa has to try and sort out is land reform, where progress has been very slow and more radical solutions are being seriously considered. It is going to need every bit of President Ramaphosa’s very strong negotiating skills to create a deal that works and to persuade both the haves and the have-nots that this is the best deal on the table. The Afrikaner farming community should not ignore the lessons of Zimbabwe, where white farmers kept refusing the opportunity of a far better deal than they eventually faced.

As the negotiations that ended apartheid showed, the best time to talk is before action is taken, not once it has started. South Africa largely missed the sort of liberation war that freed most of its neighbours simply because the Afrikaner elite read the writing on the wall and was then prepared to sit down and negotiate a serious and effective transition to democracy that gave without taking. A similar degree of sense is now required.

South Africa and its neighbours face a lot of challenges. But they are not insoluble. President Ramaphosa is not operating in a vacuum. Neighbouring presidents are now all practical people who want to solve problems rather than strut on a stage, pretty much the sort of person he is, and back home there are a lot of South Africans who want something effective done rather than score political points and will be willing to back good policy rather than rhetoric.

So while a lot of hopes ride on President Ramaphosa, he is not alone, rather a very important player on a strong team.

Vision 2030
Allen Choruma

Unless everyone in our nation, be they in politics, business, churches, civil society and our communities, upholds high ethical standards in whatever they do, we will not be successful as a nation in achieving Vision 2030 and other noble socio-economic transformation programmes.

The subject of business ethics has been rekindled in the wake of high-profile corporate scandals such as the much publicised Zinara (Zimbabwe National Road Administration) debacle and similar corruption scandals in both the public and private sectors.

Corporate scandals by their very nature revolve around failure by directors and management to uphold good standards of corporate behaviour, resulting in lapses in maintaining good corporate governance standards.

Business ethics or lack thereof, therefore, come at the centre of these high-profile corporate scandals.

I have written on this topic before, but will repeat it given the importance of the topic in the wake of corruption scandals in Zimbabwe.

Ethics

Ethics is the central nervous system for good corporate governance.

Directors and management, for example, are entrusted with huge responsibilities as stewards of shareholder investments.

Their fiduciary responsibilities as trustees require them to approach company business with seriousness and responsibility.

Company directors, management and all employees in any organisation should take business ethics seriously.

Directors need to lead by example by upholding high standards of ethical behaviour.

Directors should take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Every organisation should be guided by good business ethics as characterised by the following attributes: discipline, transparency, independence, accountability, responsibility, fairness and respect.

Ethics make a difference between leaders who will succeed and leaders who will fail.

Non-adherence to good ethical standards leads to corruption, which, in turn, handicaps performance and reputation of a company and its entire board and management.

What is ethics?

Ethics can simply be defined as that part of philosophy which deals with the moral standards of behaviour imposed by society by which a person should be guided.

From a business point of view, business ethics is about the following:

.   Observing, foremost, the moral standards of behaviour generally imposed by society.

.  Formal and informal rules of right and wrong business conduct and behaviour.

.  Compliance with formal and informal rules of business conduct.

Points of view

According to Willie Tichauer’s article (then President of the SA Institute of Company Secretaries and Administrators in 2005), “Business Ethics- An Overview”, business ethics can be looked from the following points of view:

.  Observance of moral and ethical standards of society.

.  Adherence to sound corporate governance principles.

.  Conflict of interest.

.  Legal and statutory compliance.

In my opinion, the above four points cover all the important areas that one needs to examine when one is discussing the subject of business ethics.

Misconceptions

There are general misconceptions about ethics that we need to dispel from the outset.

According to Willie Tichauer in his article cited above, these misconceptions are said to include the following:

.  Business is immoral and should be accepted.

.  The sole purpose of business is to make a profit irrespective of ethics.

.  Business operates according to a special set of principles and rules which are different from the ethics of society in general.

.  Ethics cannot be taught. By the time a student reaches the tertiary institution stage of his/her development, his/her ethical values have already been formed.

.  You will never be rich if you are completely honest.

Most people in Zimbabwe today think that ethics is associated with religion or traditional culture and that it has no role play in business. That is wrong.

We often hear people talk about making a “quick buck” irrespective of ethics.

The recent spate of price increases and arbitrage in basic commodities and fuel is an example of ethics “being thrown out of the window” in the business sector in search of profits.

Given the economic hardships being experienced in the country, most people in the civic society and in business have turned a blind eye on ethics and are simply driven by the desire to make money at all costs.

Moral fabric

As a nation, if our leaders do not follow ethical principles, we will degenerate into a society which has no moral fabric, no beliefs and no standard of values.

We have company directors, senior executives and management who have convinced themselves that you will never be rich if you are completely honest.

This is regrettable.

It is important that if we are to turn around the economic fortunes of our country in support of Vision 2030, we need corporate leaders and company executives that observe highest standards of ethical behaviour.

No business will succeed if it does not adhere to principles of good corporate governance.

The observance by our corporate leaders, management and employees of moral and ethical standards of society is part of good corporate governance.

Good corporate governance requires that companies follow principles of good business conduct.

A company cannot uphold principles of good business conduct if it does not adhere to ethics.

Ethics is core to the transparent and responsible conduct of business.

Code of Conduct

Most companies have come up with codes of conduct as one of the measures to address ethics.

A code sets out minimum standards of ethical behaviour and implies a commitment to high standard of responsible and ethical conduct by directors, management and all employees.

It should be noted that a code of ethics does not cover all aspects of ethical behaviour expected of employees.

It should, however, be stressed that a code of ethics on its own does not necessarily lead to practice of good ethics.

Codes of conduct are primarily meant to promote high standards of ethical practice by defining acceptable behaviour and practices within an organisation.

Many companies in Zimbabwe have these codes yet we still read about corporate scandals.

Adherence to good ethical practices goes beyond a code of ethics.

Ethical values start and are formed from home and within the society.

Conflict of interest

One cannot discuss business ethics without mentioning conflict of interest.

More generally, a conflict of interest can be defined as: “Any situation in which an individual is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity in some way to further their private interest or to improperly further another person’s private interest”.

A conflict of interest makes it difficult for an official, be they in a private or public capacity, to fulfil their duties fairly and objectively.

A conflict of interest compromises an official from making objective professional judgment because of a clash of official and personal interests.

This creates impropriety that usually undermines their ability to act properly because they have to further their own interests or the interests of other people.

Compliance

Lastly, compliance is a key component in enforcing a culture of business ethics.

If an organisation is to foster a culture of good ethical conduct, directors should set the right tone from above and lead by example.

From top to bottom, from the board chairperson to the lowest rank, everyone should undertake at all times:

.  To comply with the code of conduct

.  Observe all applicable company policies

.  To strictly follow rules and procedures laid down in company manuals.

.  Not to take any action which they know, or reasonably should know, violates any rules and applicable law.

.  To avoid situations that involve a conflict of interest and to disclose to appropriate authorities should they be involved in a conflict of interest situation.

.  To desist from conduct that can be interpreted as breaching internal regulations and the law.

In conclusion, corruption, which arises out of failure to adhere to good ethical standards and principles, poses serious challenges to our economic growth and prosperity and attainment of Vision 2030.

Allen Choruma can be contacted on e mail: hoziadvisory2018@gmail.com

Trade Focus
Allan Majuru

Zimbabwe’s trade performance in the first quarter showed a significant decline in the country’s trade deficit.

According to Zimstat, the trade deficit narrowed by 71 percent from US$805 million recorded between February and April 2018 to US$231 million in the same period in 2019.

The total import bill stood at US$1,2 billion, a 35 percent decrease from the US$1,8 billion recorded during the same period last year.

The horticulture sector’s contribution to total exports decreased from 2 percent in 2018 to 1,5 percent in 2019, with the aggregate value of exports decreasing from US$19,5 million between February and April 2018 to US$13,5 million over the comparative period in 2019.

Meanwhile, the country’s exports for the period under review marginally declined by 4 percent to U$922 million from US$964 million recorded in the same period in 2018.

South Africa remains the largest market for Zimbabwean products, taking 47 percent of total exports, followed by United Arab Emirates (20 percent), Mozambique (9 percent), Belgium (2 percent), Zambia (2 percent), Kenya (1 percent) and Botswana (1 percent).

The exports were predominantly commodities and raw materials.

The decline was mainly due to a drop in exports of leguminous vegetables, nuts (whether fresh or dried), citrus fruits and tea.

The decrease was also attributed to several constraints that have impacted negatively on the competitiveness of the sector, mainly lack of foreign currency and climate change (Cyclone Idai).

ZimTrade, the country’s trade development and promotion organisation, has put forward different projects to ensure there is diversification of horticultural products for export projects.

For example, the Best Model Farm seeks to further develop production as well as improve quality and diversification of export products through the development of robust out-grower schemes that involve small-scale farmers in Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and Midlands.

Partnerships with expert organisations such as PUM from the Netherlands have assisted by conducting expert missions targeted at horticulture farmers.

A beneficiary of ZimTrade’s PUM initiative, Mr Noel Muwani from Owami Agriculture said, “We were having challenges balancing our product diversification drive and the development of our out-grower scheme. With the help of Dr Van’t Klooster from PUM, we are now setting up a new blueberry export operation.”

The processed foods and beverages sector continued to record a positive performance, with the sector’s contribution to total exports increasing from 1,1percent between February and April 2018 to 3,3 percent during the same period in 2019.

The value of exports in this sector recorded a sharp increase from US$10 million in 2018 to US$30 million in 2019.

The increase was attributed to the significant jump in exports of cane sugar in solid form from US$2 million in 2018 to US$20 million in 2019.

The export of products not previously exported in 2018, take for instance cheese curd, also contributed to the growth of exports in this sector. And the major markets for the products were South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana.

The clothing and textiles sector recorded a marginal increase from 0,9 percent in 2018 to 1 percent in 2019 and the increase was attributed to the growth in exports of footwear with rubber, plastics and leather soles, woven fabrics of cotton, cotton yarn, tarpaulins, waterproof footwear and babies’ garments.

However, there has been a significant decline in raw hides and skin exports, and this is because the sector faces several challenges such as the limited stock of commercially managed beef herd.

Beef slaughter cattle are being sourced from communal areas where cattle are raised for on-farm uses and usually raw hides from such are often damaged over time, hence unsuitable for export.

Since 2016, the sector has received a lot of technical intervention support from PUM and has equipped local tanners with ideas on how to improve the sector’s value chains and production processes.

Through this partnership, a workshop was organised recently with the objective of equipping tanneries with knowledge on current trends and best practice, as well as to equip them with modern waste management techniques.

Manufactured tobacco’s contribution to exports significantly increased from 0,6 percent in 2018 to 1,2 percent in 2019.

In addition, unmanufactured tobacco exports increased from US$117 million in 2018 to US$123 million in 2019, with the major markets for the product being China, South Africa, Britain, United Arab Emirates and Belgium.

Imports

In the period under review, the major source (import) markets were South Africa (36 percent), Singapore (29 percent) and China (9 percent).

Some of the import products in the period under review included diesel (19 percent), unleaded petrol (9 percent), crude soya bean oil (2 percent), medicaments (1 percent) and wheat (1 percent), among others.

Raw materials’ imports decreased from 14 percent recorded between February and April 2018 to 11 percent during the same period in 2019.

The raw materials imports included crude soya bean oil, wheat, cyanides, vitamin additives, soya bean oil cake, ammonium nitrate, insecticides, polyethylene and polypropylene in their primary forms, among others.

The decrease is mainly attributed to foreign currency shortages.

Zimbabwe’s trade imbalance has a direct negative impact on the fiscus. Therefore, there is need for collective action to improve exports.

ZimTrade is committed to assist local companies and SMEs to develop and promote their products for the export market through expert interventions, facilitating participation at international trade shows, advocacy and market intelligence.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis

One of the world’s most valuable and largest free trade agreements — the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTFA) — kicked in on May 30, yet it has received little attention from the mainstream media.

This is an indication that despite globalisation, trade that really matters is perceived to be the United States’ domain.

Yet the AfCTFA is the single largest FTA realised since the coming together of the World Trade Organisation.

China has been a major broker in the deal, using its diplomatic, political, and trade clout to harness an agreement that includes 52 out of 55 African countries (only Benin, Eritrea and Nigeria have not joined).

The AfCTFA covers an area worth over US$3 trillion in GDP and eliminates tariffs on 90 percent of goods traded across the continent.

Over 1,2 billion African consumers will be impacted by the agreement.

Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest country in GDP terms, is currently out of the deal based on concerns raised by the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria, which views the AfCFTA as having a negative impact on its members.

Nigeria does have a separate free trade agreement with China, but that has been viewed as less than positive as Chinese manufacturers allegedly began dumping cheap and poorly made products on the Nigerian market after its signing in 2010.

The future writing is on the horizon — over the next decade, low-cost manufacturing will start heading to Africa, and China still needs to buy cheap and reliably produced goods.

That goes hand-in-hand with the African resources that China is already committing to buy, and the Belt and Road Initiative is very much part of this.

Infrastructure is continuing to be put in place, with China being at the forefront of energy, telecommunications and transport projects throughout the continent. That has been going on for the past ten years. When I visited Kenya back in 2012, the Chinese-built Nairobi to Mombasa railway line was already being engineered.

The Chinese have also built numerous presidential palaces in various African nations, including the African Union HQ in Addis Ababa.

China’s needs also fit in with those of a collective Africa.

It has not gone unnoticed that parts of intra-African trade infrastructure are so poor that certain African countries sell more products to the EU than they do to their neighbours.

AfCTFA will boost Africa’s manufacturing capacity. Africa has and will continue to be a force to reckon with, although organising and management skills are still very much required.

Labour shift

AfCTFA will usher in a shift from agriculture-based labour, which currently takes 50 percent of the continent’s labour, to industry, which is currently five times more productive in GDP terms, yet lacks manpower.

Some nations will suffer short-term pain to get through that transition.

There is still ongoing work to get this free trade behemoth to fly.

Although the tariff reductions have been agreed to, again certain nations will suffer an immediate impact as these kick in, most notably in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

However, competition policy and IP issues have already been agreed to, meaning that it is largely up to African entrepreneurs and businessmen to bite the bullet and get on with adjusting to a common market instead of concentrating purely on their own national commerce.

That appears to be a growth trend too, with IATA forecasting that Africa represents the second fastest annual growth market of the world’s passenger aviation at 4,6 percent per annum.

By 2037, Africa will see an additional 200 million passengers for a total market of 334 million passengers.

That’s second only to Asia. And guess who will want to build the airport capacity, supporting infrastructure, and supply the aircraft?

Still to come in the short-term development of the AfCTFA, though, are issues including tariff schedules, rules of origin, and some specific arrangements on trade in services.

However, participating countries are expected to submit negotiated market access offers (import tariff commitments) by January next year, while agreement already exists to liberalise 97 percent of all tariff lines, accounting for over 90 percent of intra-African trade.

In a manner similar to that adopted by ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the time-frame for tariff liberalisation in AfCTFA is five years (or 10 for ‘least-developed countries’).

The rules of origin legislation is expected to be finalised this month, with protocols on investment, intellectual property rights, and competition policy to be put in place by June next year.

 Trade development

China, for its part, has already been making efforts to develop free trade development zones in Africa.  One example is the expansion of the well-known (in China) Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA), which has essentially reached full capacity in Tianjin.

It has branched out to establish a subsidiary in Egypt. The TEDA is continuing to grow into a total area of 7,23 km2 in Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), just east of the capital Cairo. They are not alone — Russia has done the same. TEDA’s business model this time around will be slightly different.

Instead of attracting foreign investors to Tianjin, they are now focusing on bringing Chinese investors to Africa. One such investor is the Chinese fibreglass manufacturer Jushi, which has helped Egypt become one of the largest fibreglass producers and exporters in the world.

Other free trade development areas are certain to sprout up across the African continent.

Professor Waleed Gab-Allah of Cairo University’s financial and economic department has been quoted in Xinhua as forecasting a 50 percent increase in Chinese exports to the AfCFTA countries when the agreement comes into force.

“The African Free Trade Agreement will encourage more Chinese companies to work and invest in Egypt’s economic zone to benefit from the Suez Canal passage to Africa with reduced tariffs,” he said.

On a pan-African scale, the economic impact of AfCFTA will be significant.

According to the African Development Bank, removing tariffs on intra-African trade will boost net income at the continental level by US$2,8 billion per annum.

Removing the ad valorem tariff equivalents of non-tariff barriers on goods and services will result in a 1,25 percent increase in net real income, or US$37 billion, while implementation of the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) will boost benefits even further, with an estimated aggregate real income gain of 3,5 percent, or some US$100 billion.

In terms of the impact on trade, the AfCFTA stands to boost intra-regional trade (within regional economic communities) by 14,6 percent, while intra-African trade will increase by around 107 percent.

Further, the implementation of the TFA will grow intra-African trade by an additional 51 percent. However, the AfCFTA is not only meant to benefit the Chinese. International businesses from all over the world can benefit by establishing African subsidiaries.

China also has double tax treaties with a number of African nations — Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Uganda, Seychelles, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Although Southeast Asia will continue to be a rapidly growing region for trade and commerce, as Africa develops via the new AfCFTA, it will start to become competitive.

I predict that within the next five years, we will start to see the moves made by foreign businesses who originally began their overseas manufacturing expansion for cost reasons to China, continue the journey to Southeast Asia, then head across to Africa.

The AfCFTA brings us a massive step further into reality.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis writes for China Briefing, which is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world, including in Dalian, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Readers may write to china@dezshira.com for more information on doing business in China.

Dr Strike Mkandla

THE passing on of Dr Dumiso Dabengwa on 23 May triggered a great buzz on Zimbabwe’s political scene, which is unusual when an opposition figures dies.

This unusual interest, largely derives from his famed role in the war of liberation as head of security and intelligence in the Zimbabwe People’s Liberation Army (ZPRA), the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).

His more recent role, as a keen unifier of the opposition parties, has also left an indelible mark over the last few years.

The ability to fashion and sustain successful security machinery was indeed no small feat.

However, this is part of a wider politics, where belief in the importance of victory made sacrifice and service to a cause feel natural.

Even so, soon after his death, it is remarkable how Dabengwa spent his life fighting for one right or another. In his teenage years, he rose against the intensification of racial politics.

At an early age of 20, he found himself compelled to join the African National Congress (ANC) led by Dr Joshua Nkomo.

He was to join the parties that were formed in succession to replace the ANC — National Democratic Party (NDP) and ZAPU.

On the other end of the political spectrum, the ruling white population was moving to the right while the blacks were becoming radicalised in the struggle for political representation and better working conditions.

The 10 years from 1953 were also a block of years covered by the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in which Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) saw the growth of nationalist movements that caught the imagination of many young people like Dabengwa to fight for their rights.

What struck me is the coincidence of 1963 between the acrimonious end of the federation and the departure, for military training, by young people like Dumiso Dabengwa and Luke Mhlanga who had already started on sabotage operations.  This is also the year in which the Rhodesia Front of Winston Field and later Ian Smith gained ascendancy in the ruling white population after winning elections at the end of 1962.

This party was committed to retaining all the historic discriminatory legislation and practices, such as the Land Apportionment Act of 1933, the Land Husbandry Act of 1952, and was about to add draconian security legislation to define a perennial authoritarian state.

Playing a key role behind the scenes

When one looks at the panorama of Dabengwa’s politics, what is evident is that, throughout internal and external challenges in the liberation movement, he did not lose sight of the independence and freedom of Zimbabweans as the ultimate purpose for waging the armed struggle.

This is not to say that ZAPU party politics did not feature as a motive in his contribution with others in the creation of cooperation agreements in the ZAPU-ZANU Joint Military Command (JMC) of 1972; the 1975 attempt to forge the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA) between the forces of ZAPU and ZANU and finally the Patriotic Front which took place in the late 1970s to pilot joint negotiations for an independence settlement.

In the same manner, he was an important bridge with Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK) armed wing when ZAPU and the African National Congress (ANC) built an alliance to tackle Rhodesian and South African forces across the Zambezi.

The simple but profound values that drove the campaigns of the National Democratic Party in 1960 for a democratic vote, the strong commitments of ZAPU in land restitution and an end to repressive and unaccountable government, fired Dabengwa’s attitude on the relation between the people and the State.

He proved a staunch follower of party leader Dr Joshua Nkomo and has lived under that influence from his youth politics to the end.

 A retreat into business interrupted by imprisonment

It is not a subject of this piece, but the integration of the ZPRA, ZANLA and Rhodesian Army, following the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement under British auspices, owes a lot of its success to Dabengwa’s unpretentious commitment to peace-building and stability.

He wanted all the people in the country to thrive under it.

As the saying goes, this is now all water under the bridge.

In a back-handed compliment, Dabengwa was destined not to be the first head of the integrated army and he gracefully opted for civilian life in order to pick up from where he had left when he joined the armed struggle.

This short digression into Dabengwa’s involvement in the military is unavoidable because that sector continued to affect the way he was viewed by the newly-independent State of Zimbabwe.

Having married in 1980 to Zodwa Dabengwa nee Khumalo, the liberation war fighter enthusiastically moved from the army into various business ventures.

He partnered former ZPRA Commander Ackim Ndlovu and Charles Madonko in a company called Limpopo Holdings, but this was soon overtaken in 1982 by arrest on allegations of caching weapons to overthrow the new Government.

After being acquitted of treason charges with his colleagues, Dabengwa and others were moved into detention without trial in Chikurubi maximum security prison where he was held with Lookout Masuku and others until 1986.

Along with the “Gukurahundi” disturbances in Matabeleland and the Ndebele-speaking parts of the Midlands province, Dabengwa’s incarceration in Chikurubi ranks among the darkest periods in his life.

Unity Accord and ZAPU revival

Dabengwa was a reluctant entrant into the Unity Accord between ZANU-PF and PF -ZAPU in 1987.

This is important for the record because there are sometimes claims that he was an architect of the agreement in which Nkomo was not rewarded with a position as deputy leader to Robert Mugabe.

Instead, Nkomo was appointment one of the two Sate Vice-Presidents alongside Simon Muzenda. This sort of arrangement was guaranteed to fall apart and it duly happened in 2010 when ZAPU resumed independent existence under Dumiso Dabengwa.

Institutionalising change

Dumiso Dabengwa accepted the challenge to lead the re-instituted ZAPU after he had already left the ruling party with Simba Makoni and others to form Mavambo-Kusile-Dawn in 2008.

In other words, he was never afraid to stand up and be counted; he would not send others to take the risk and roar from behind.

This is the stance he took in efforts to craft a united front of the opposition in 2013 and 2018 elections.

He refused to be used as an excuse for failure.

There are many who will only realise, with the passage of time and his own life, that there are times when national interest has to overcome personal interest.

On this one, Dabengwa ran a perfect race although the prize eluded him in his own time. I even have a suspicion that he could have paid more attention to tell-tale signs that his health needed more monitoring, but focused on solving our collective ills more than his underlying ones.

Preparation for ultimate retirement

Dabengwa, a tireless and patient party leader, was also determined that ZAPU should stick to its constitutional provision that the President serves for no more than two five-year terms.

It was thus a shock to many party members who could not imagine a future without him when he reminded them and announced, at the 2016 Congress, that he was serving his second and last term.

He did not stop there, but went on to urge members to start looking for the next president in time for the 2020 Congress.

He was active in pushing for gender equality in leadership positions and entry of younger people into leadership as well.

This was well before he realised that his health was getting bad.

It is remarkable, therefore, how he almost foresaw the need for renewal after him without expecting to leave us so suddenly.

May He Rest in Peace.

Dr Strike Mkandla is ZAPU secretary general.

Dr Joram Gumbo

We publish the Presidential policy guidelines on the devolution and decentralisation of governance. These guidelines, which were signed off by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, were presented in Cabinet by Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in charge of Implementation and Monitoring, Dr Joram Gumbo.

***

Chapters 14, 15 and 17 of our Constitution present devolution as one of the founding values and principles of the Constitution.

In recognition of its paramount importance, my Government has made the implementation of the devolution and decentralisation programme a key strategy of the country’s development agenda.

Indeed, the devolution and decentralisation programme features prominently in our socio-economic development roadmap, Vision 2030, as well as in the Transitional Stabilisation Programme and indeed, the 2019 National Budget. Whereas the Constitution provides broad parameters on the Zimbabwe devolution agenda, there still exist some ambiguities, gaps and inadequacies that must be addressed in order to guarantee the effective implementation of the devolution and decentralisation programme.

These policy guidelines, thus, provide framework on the basis of which a cogent and comprehensive devolution and decentralisation policy should be developed.

Objectives of the devolution and decentralisation programme

The Zimbabwe devolution and decentralisation programme is anchored on the overriding objective of promoting sustainable, representative, accountable, participatory and inclusive governance and socio-economic development in the country. In essence, the policy will deepen our democracy and bring Government services closer to the people.

More precisely, the programme is premised on the attainment of the following objectives:

to give powers of local governance to the people and enhance their participation in the exercise of the powers of the State and in making decisions on issues affecting them;

to promote a democratic, effective, transparent, accountable and coherent Government in Zimbabwe as a whole;

to preserve and foster the national unity and indivisibility of Zimbabwe as a sovereign State;

to provide recognition of the right of communities to manage their own affairs and further their own development;

to encourage the equitable sharing of local and national resources; and

to transfer local fiscal responsibilities and resources from the national Government to sub-national entities in order to establish a sound financial base for each provincial and metropolitan council and local authorities in rural areas.

However, the central Government machinery running the country will not be disbanded.

Instead, recipients of delegated political power, fiscal responsibilities and management of local resources will remain subordinate to the central Government. A policy framework will be evolved, which will enable Government to monitor effective and productive use of delegated powers. Quintessentially, compliance with appropriate legal frameworks will be stringently monitored and prompt action will be taken in case of any breaches.

Government political powers will only be devolved to eligible sub-national authorities to the extent defined by relevant laws and policies.

Therefore, there will be areas in sub-national jurisdictions which will remain a business for the central Government, such as defence, foreign affairs and national fiscal matters.

There will be areas in which the powers of regions and central Government will overlap.

Such areas include, inter alia, policing and specialised service delivery.

In implementing this endeavour, there will be stringent oversight in the exercise of devolved powers in order to curtail any breeding of corruption in those territories. To that end, financial conduct of sub-national structures will be guided by a sound public financial management system.

The proposed paradigm shift in the architecture of our national governance structures should result in increased and competitive exploitation of local resources, products and services.

Consequently, the country’s exports of high value products, goods and services will be contributed by all regions. A major service product, among other services, is tourism. In some areas earmarked to be export processing zones, significant value addition services such as banking, digital innovations, assembly operations, health and manufacture of pharmaceutical products, could make Vision 2030 a reality before that timeline.

Major success factors of implementing countrywide devolution of central Government authority will be the extent to which public services will be efficiently and timeously delivered in a cost effective manner.

The overall objective of policy will be to unlock the development potential of regions that will translate into attainment of higher investments, outputs, employment, value addition and equitable development. Regional social development and economic data will be regularly collected, in order to measure local Gross Domestic Product and disparities in the development of various sub-national territories.

Principles of provincial and

local government

In pursuit of the above-stated objectives, the devolution agenda shall be supported by the general principles of provincial and local Government as enshrined in Chapters 14, 15 and 17 of the Constitution, outlined hereunder:

1. a) that provincial councils, metropolitan councils and rural councils must, within their spheres, ensure good governance by being effective, transparent, accountable and institutionally coherent;
2. b) that the sub-national Governments must assume only those functions conferred on them by the Constitution or an Act of Parliament, thereby ensuring that their conduct is legal at all times;
3. c) that the sub-national tiers of Government must exercise their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographical, functional or institutional integrity of another tier of Government;
4. d) that the sub-national tiers of Government must cooperate with another by (i) informing one another on matters of common interest, and (ii) harmonizing and coordinating their activities;
5. e) that the lower tiers of Government must preserve the peace, national unity and indivisibility of Zimbabwe;
6. f) that the provincial and local authorities must always work towards securing the public welfare; and
7. g) that they should, at all times, ensure fair and equitable representation of people within their areas of jurisdiction.

Provincial tiers of Government

Zimbabwe’s Constitution recognises the existence of the following 10 provinces — Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Manicaland, Masvingo, Midlands, Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, Bulawayo and Harare. The first eight rural provinces shall be guided by provincial council while the last two — Bulawayo and Harare — shall be guided by the metropolitan councils.

In addition, local authorities shall be governed by their own councils. Chapter 15 of the Constitution also provides principles of guardianship of rural areas by chiefs.  As the Constitution currently stands, a total of 10 directly elected officials — all Members of Parliament, the President of the Chiefs Council and his or her deputy, make up the Provincial Council in each particular province.

The metropolitan council, on the other hand, are constituted by all Members of Parliament, mayors, chairpersons, deputy mayors and deputy chairpersons in the metropolitan province.

Roles and responsibilities of metropolitan, provincial and local authority councils

The provincial and metropolitan councils shall carry out socio-economic development in their respective areas of jurisdiction, including:

1. a) planning and implementing social, economic and developmental activities;
2. b) planning and implementing measures for the conservation, improvement and management of natural resources;
3. c) promoting tourism in their provinces and developing facilities for that purpose;
4. d) monitoring and evaluating the use of resources in their province;
5. e) coordinating and implementing governmental programmes in their provinces; and
6. f) exercising any other functions, including legislative functions, that may be conferred or imposed by the Constitution or an Act of Parliament.

The devolution and decentralisation programme

A major aspect of the country’s economic development will be the devolution and decentralization of governance as well as economic power and functions of Government to provincial councils and local authorities. The devolved political power will be exercised by office holders who would have been elected in accordance of the law.

Ultimately, Zimbabwe’s three tier governance structures will become autonomous entities within parameters defined in law and by Government national policy proclamations, which are made from time to time.

The exercise of devolved State power will occur when central Government decentralises some of its functions to be sub-national Government structures. These sub-national governance structures are expected to achieve the following functions:

recognise and guarantee the existence of the sub-national local units, namely, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities for rural areas as devolved tiers of Government.

Provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities are empowered to make policies, by-laws, rules and regulations and to adopt and implement laws and policies to facilitate effective planning of development programmes, good governance, revenue collection and expenditure at the local levels.

Provincial councils and local authorities are also expected to formulate regional investment and development plans derived from the National Investment and Development master-plan. Such plans should be a result of broad-based stakeholder consultations involving the local communities, traditional, political and civic leaders, local corporate sector, public enterprises and Government agencies operating in each province, right from the ward to the provincial level.

In developing their plans, the provincial structures will be assisted by personnel from ZIDA (Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency) and officials from OPC (Office of the President and Cabinet), in order to ensure coordination and synchronisation of regional plans with the national master-plan.

However, it should be emphasised that the autonomy of the developed sub-national governance structure should never be in competition or conflict with that of the national Government.

For the avoidance of doubt, the devolved units can only assume such powers and functions as are conferred upon them by the country’s Constitution or relevant Act of Parliament.

Metropolitan and provincial councils as well as local authorities must stimulate economic growth and employment creation through the establishment of value added industries, Small to Medium Enterprises, public-private partnerships and special economic zones, being guided by their respective factor endowments.

Furthermore, the appropriate supervisory instruments must be set up in order to ensure the effective functioning of a devolved system of governance, guarantee the indivisibility of Zimbabwe as a sovereign State as well as prevent corruption and other fraudulent activities that may set in at the lower tiers of Government.

A spatial decentralised budgetary system should be instituted to underpin the formulation of metropolitan, provincial and local authority investment and development plans and the allocation of revenues to the sub-national tiers of Government.

l Continued on www.sundaymail.co.zw

Politics, as an existential science, can be characteristically hot, heavy and heady.

In its very extreme form, politics can be similar to religious fundamentalism, where it becomes a matter of life and death.

It is high-octane stuff that can be easily combustible, which is precisely the reason why oft-times politics and violence can be easy bedfellows.

But over the centuries, politicians have sensibly discovered that violence can be an inconvenient political tool since it has the potential to turn into an ungovernable Frankenstein monster capable of devouring even its creator.

Humanity learnt the value of peace through successive world wars — World War 1(1914-1918) and World War 2 (1939-1945) — which cumulatively claimed more than 100 million lives, a human calamity unlike any other seen before in the history of the world, or at least since Noah’s time.

Today, the United Nations — however dysfunctional — now stands as a symbol of the global commitment to pursue peace.

Bishop Lazi, having lived through the country’s painful transition from a British colony to an independent African state, also knows all too well how war, which is a choreographed version of violence, can be unconscionably gory.

Most who live through it do not have the mental fortitude to tell the traumatic tale.

The Bishop’s uncle barely survived it: the affable and voluble cadre who left to join the war was not the same grumpy, intemperate and withdrawn imposter who victoriously returned from the bush.

Whatever he saw, or whatever demons possessed him during his tortuous journey back, he didn’t tell a soul.

Instead, he soaked himself in disproportionate amounts of liquor, which many suspect took him on an early vacation to the grave.

Even his peers, who are still living to today, still carry with them the scars of the brutal and brutish years of Zimbabwe’s birth.

Ironically and unfortunately, today we have a toxic dichotomy where the generation that saw the excesses of violence and war insatiably crave peace, while the current generation of millennials who have relatively lived in peace desperately seek violence.

Stupidly Brave or Bravely Stupid?

The Bishop got quite the hibbie-jibbies from the incendiary rhetoric and sabre-rattling coming out of the MDC’s recent congress in Gweru.

While it is not uncommon to expect a harvest of both sound and fury from a conclave of jabberjaws, the young Nelson Chamisa and his starry-eyed acolytes might be pushing the political envelope a tad too far.

The excitable young politician was quite unequivocal that the MDC would dislodge Zanu-PF from power before the 2023 elections.

He wasn’t even implicit, but very explicit.

“Unenhamo imwe Ngwena; ucharedzwa mudziva. Nda. . . unokurumidza kutorwa nguva isati yasvika. What do I mean? Ndakataura kuti 2023 kure? Why ndiri kuti kure? We must make sure that we have a democratic election in this country as soon as possible. Kana varamba, tonovahwehweredza for that democratic election kuti iitike munyika muno umu,” said Chamisa at the congress.

Argh! Kikikiki. Baba’ngu shava.

I hope that our peace-loving Western diplomats are taking note of the young man’s inveterately inflammatory tongue.

Instinctively, the Bishop asked himself if Chamisa is stupidly brave or bravely stupid.

We have been down this path before.

We saw the same bravado from an equally excitable motley of young politicians (G40) in the year preceding the epoch-making month of November 2017.

And thanks to Professor Jonathan Moyo’s unscientific logic — which presupposes that if you find a tortoise in your backyard, it might be wise to ask whose it is — we now know that such bravado is definitely outsourced.

Moyo’s allegory assumes that the tortoise is an untouchable proxy of an unvanquishable force.

Well, now we all know how that story ended: the tortoise is now hunkered down in a hole somewhere in Kenya, while the unvanquishable force is now sulking his way into the sunset.

Kikikiki. Zimbabwean politics, it seems, is so unkind to puppeteered tortoises.

Budding Romance

Quite clearly, an ambitious Chamisa is more than prepared to become the abiding tortoise of neocons (neoconservatives) who now control the White House.

Like Venezuela’s youthful Juan Guaido, he hopes that the US will parachute him to power by collapsing the Zanu-PF Government, which has been stonewalling Uncle Sam’s vaulting ambitions in the country and region.

The signs of this conveniently blossoming romance are quite apparent, from MDC’s reference to their “strong friends” during last year’s campaigns; the MDC manifesto, which ludicrously talks about recognising Israel, especially at a time when South Africa’s governing power, ANC, has since resolved to downgrade its embassy in Jerusalem; to MDC supporters blissfully hoisting the American flag during their demonstrations against the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) last year.

Dear reader, the MDC are free to associate and befriend whomsoever they want, for as long as long as they are not being sweet-talked into using dead bodies of innocent Zimbabweans as stepping stones to State House.

Recently, there was extensive coverage of how some of our fellow countrymen were taught, at a two-day workshop that was held in South Africa (May 10-May 11 2019), how to conveniently sacrifice as many lives as possible to further MDC’s power grab.

One of the workshop’s facilitators, Anthony Reeler, a man who has been known to operate in the shadows, reportedly told the naive gathering: “There is need to break people’s fear and unlock the appetite of total willingness in the people in order to get them out into the streets in numbers.

“No government will shoot, say, 5 000 people without drawing the attention of the UN and the full wrath of the US. If the numbers continue swelling, this will force Government to give in. Pressure will mount from both the regional and international community.”

As shocking as it might seem, this line of thinking is erringly similar to what Chamisa said during the just-ended MDC congress.

“When we start doing what we have to start doing, I know that they will panic and they will start killing people. But you can’t kill all the people, you will die before you kill all the people,” said the impressionable young man.

Coincidence?

Well, Bishop Lazarus doesn’t believe in coincidences.

Nor in the fact that messages calling for another blood-letting shutdown, which inundated our social networking platforms last week — ably supported by an unabashed tweet from the US embassy in Zimbabwe cryptically asserting that “Peaceful protest is a human right” — are a mere happenstance.

There is definitely method to the madness. Indeed as many in spycraft would say, the real battle is fought in the shadows.

As a man of the cloth, I can only caution that the Holy Book warns against the futility of violence.

Proverbs 3:31 says, “Do not envy the violent and choose any of their ways”, while Psalms 11:5 preaches that “The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion.”

For non-believers, they must heed the wise words from pastor Evan Mawarire.

“Jeri harinakidze muwinter mukoma. Ndirikuyedza kupedza zvandakasungirwa muna January. Ndichiri musungwa kutaura kudai. Ndinzwireiwo nyasha vadikani,” he quipped recently on his Facebook page.

Of course cold weather and wet dreams are a toxic combo.

Winter is here; we will definitely see how it will all pan out.

Bishop out!

Writing Back
Ranga Mataire

David Coltart, the self-confessed former British South African Police (BSAP) member, who authored a rehashed moribund autobiography, recently rebounded as treasurer of the MDC at the party’s congress held in Gweru.

It is almost 19 years since Coltart became the founding secretary for legal affairs of the MDC in 2000, then led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai.

While no-one holds any beef with Coltart’s elevation, it is critical for observers to introspect about the psychological malaise that afflicts the MDC inasfar as their attitude towards whites, especially those who served in the Rhodesian police and army.

One quickly recalls the late Roy Leslie Bennet, that boisterous white politician who was the inaugural MDC treasurer at its formation in 1999. Coincidently, just like Coltart, Bennet also served in the notorious BSAP and only emerging as a ‘black messiah’ in the post-independence era. Bennet’s political career as an opposition politician took a nose-dive when he charged and pushed former Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa in Parliament when the latter had said he was an offspring of “thieves and murderers”.

The burly politician had to serve time at Chikurubi and further attempts for a political comeback after his release came to naught when then-President Mugabe refused to recognise him when Tsvangirai had seconded him to the position of Deputy Minister of Agriculture in a coalition government.

Bennet was later charged with treason. The charge was changed to “conspiring to acquire arms with a view to disrupting essential services”.

After his release, Bennet went to live in exile in South Africa. He died with his wife on  January 17 2018 in a helicopter crash in Colfax, New Mexico, USA — assuredly a bitter man to the end. And now enter Coltart.  A man who has enjoyed an unfettered life of privilege both in the colonial and post-colonial era.

We might need to recount his brief history to understand the malaise afflicting the MDC’s thinking that whiteness equals excellence.

We need this brief history to understand why the MDC has come full circle in being a purely ungrounded political organisation obsessed with the idea of white appeasement. Born on October 1957, Coltart grew up in Bulawayo.

No matter how much he tries to sanitise his early life, history records that the young Coltart was an enthusiastic cadre of the colonial system who served the BSAP with diligence and candour.

Attempts by Coltart to sanitise his own devious involvement in the murder of black indigenes in his 2016 book “The Struggle Continues: 550 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe” won’t fool anyone.

Equally, his attempts to disassociate himself from the notorious Selous Scouts won’t stick.

We need to give a deserved account of this Selous Scouts unit for some to appreciate why Coltart is such a sore in our national consciousness. The Selous Scouts was a special forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army that operated from 1973 until the reconstitution of the country as Zimbabwe in 1980.

It committed atrocities against innocent Rhodesian African civilians in Rhodesia and neighbouring countries.

The outfit was named after the British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous (1851- 1971). Its slogan ‘pamwe chete’ was a Shona phrase meaning “all together”.

Its charter mandated it to undertake “clandestine elimination of so-called ‘terrorists’ within and without the country”.

Created under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daily, it was organised as a mixed race unit comprising of recruits of both African and European descent.

Its primary motive was to operate deep in insurgent-controlled territory and wage war on the hostilities’ rear through irregular warfare, including the use of pseudo-terrorism as a means of penetrating the enemy.

This is the team that both the late Bennet and young Coltart were part of.

A team that resorted to using asymmetric warfare against opponents with actions ranging from the bombing of private houses, abductions, MI8 Claymore mine attacks against military targets, assassinations, intimidation, blackmail and extortion.

The unit was infamous for weakening popular support for guerrillas by employing all sorts of tactics.  In one instance in Madziwa, the group is said to have accused eight enthusiastic guerrilla supporters of being police informers and beat them up before leaving.

This would leave a very sour taste in the area, especially when the accused were known sympathisers of the freedom fighters.

The Scouts’ unusual tactics were the subject of gruesome photographs by one J. Ross Baughaman that won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1978.

Coltart was a sure member of this unit because many of its members were policemen. The soldiers pretended to be guerrillas by infiltrating guerrilla units and committed many of the gruesome acts that were attributed in the Rhodesian media as having been committed by freedom fighters.

Of interest is the unit’s regimental badge of the osprey — a fish-eating bird found in small numbers in many parts of the world.

Some of the code names for the unit included ‘skuz apo’ — a colloquial Shona term meaning  “Excuse me for being here”, typically used by pickpocket thieves who bump into people and mutter an apology as they take one’s wallet. The other code was ‘Eskimos”, which refers to the unit operating in ‘frozen’ areas that were no-go areas for other units.

By 1974, the Selous Scouts had captured or killed 100 freedom fighters.

At the end of 1976, the unit had killed 1 257 innocent civilians in that year alone. Other Rhodesian combined security forces had killed 400 freedom fighters.

Predictably, most of the white Selous Scouts went in droves down South when Zimbabwe attained independence.

Coltart was one of those who went down South. He attained a law degree from the University of Cape Town and an LLB post-graduate law degree in 1982.

So ironic that a man who was part of a devious apparatus that butchered black people would choose to pursue law.

Unashamedly, the man who should have been pleading for mercy to the new black rulers was so enthusiastic in being an instrument of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in compiling data for alleged misdemeanours of the new government during the Gukurahundi period.

The same man who was part of the apparatchik that wantonly murdered black people suspected of aiding freedom fighters would wake up one day as a human rights champion.

The Selous Scouts were evil creatures of an evil force and it is ironic that Coltart wants to dwell on others’ past as if he has no past.

One can’t help but feel sorry for blind followers of the MDC.  They have no idea of what’s really going on.

Putting a white man as the “moneybag” reflects a serious malaise that needs exorcism.

It reflects the mind-set of a bunch of people who think that white people are incorruptible and can bring the much-needed money through their shadowy connections.

Yes, we live in a reconciled nation where we must let bygones be bygones but this does not mean that the same people who thrived on the murder, subjugation, and humiliation of our forefathers can today be so hallowed as to be put on a high moral pedestal.

For feedback contact ranga.mataire@gmail.com or lovemore.mataire@zimpapers.co.zw

There should be no fuel queues in Zimbabwe: Enough foreign currency is provided to more than meet demand; the infrastructure is adequate to deliver and dispense fuel; and there are a lot of service stations with some worried that the sector might well be over-traded.

So why do we have queues, and at times very long queues? More particularly why did these queues only really start to appear around nine months ago? Why does queue pressure vary, at times being very modest and at times, such as in the early and middle days of last week, is supply so tight?

Until just after the middle of last year, there were no queues at all, except at times short petrol queues, but no diesel queues, on Fridays, largely driven by the desire of many Zimbabwe motorists to fill up on the day just before the weekend.

That tells us that the whole supply system and infrastructure for the entire industry was adequate. Car ownership had been rising steadily, but the industry was expanding to cope with new service stations opened, older service stations being refurbished to handle more business and tanker fleets being kept up to scratch. Since then car ownership might have continued rising, but in percentage terms the expansion was very modest and in any case new service stations were continuing to open. So something else happened.

There are indications that in the second half of last year statistics measuring fuel use showed a rapid rise in demand, and if they were measuring fuel purchases accurately then within a few months Zimbabweans collectively were burning almost twice as much fuel as before. That obviously was not possible and the general suspicion was that fuel, all of which is imported, was being bought with what are now called RTGS dollars and illegally exported for sale at a discount in neighbouring countries in hard currency. Or perhaps the imports were only on paper and the fuel was being diverted before arrival in Zimbabwe.

That led to the fuel tax increases in January this year to remove the opportunities for arbitrage. It partially worked but not as well as expected. Suspicion has hardened that some in the industry were taking their forex allocations, issued at 1-1 between the RTGS dollar and the US dollar, and selling the allocation; this would probably be an indirect sale of the company allotted forex buying other goods and raw materials and selling these at a quite different exchange rate.

This was one factor that saw the forex allotments changed last week to the interbank rate, the other major factor being the unsustainability of subsidising all fuel imports, for the rich and poor alike, and its replacement by a more direct and smaller subsidy for the poor via a contract with Zupco.

And the first result was most service stations were not open and some of those that did were trying to charge around 50 percent more than the legally set price while others were demanding US dollars for fuel they paid for in RTGS dollars.

Minister of Energy and Power Development Advocate Fortune Chasi and Reserve Bank Governor Dr John Mangudya moved to direct action. A meeting with the industry leaders was called and the Minister made it crystal clear that manipulating and distorting the markets, siphoning fuel and cash, was not tolerated. And he revealed his ultimate weapon, the licences that those in the fuel industry are required to have. These do not have to be renewed and he made it clear that those who cannot meet the requirements of licensing would not have their licences renewed.

This was needed.

What we, including the Minister, have all noted is that there are honest and competent people in the industry. Even on the worst supply days of last week there was a modest handful of service stations receiving and paying for regular tanker loads of fuel and then selling this at the announced legal and regulated price to the motorists in the long queues winding their way through the forecourts. And they were selling for bond notes, swipe card and ecocash without question. They were also allowing modest container sales, since some do need fuel for generators in Zesa load shedding, but banning drums and large bulk sales so that as many of their customers as possible could buy a full tank. In short they were exhibiting their fitness for a licence renewal as well as building up a loyal customer base.

So what was everyone else doing? And why were they not doing their proper legal business?

Minister Chasi is not the only one eager to know, but he has the advantage that he has powers to start an audit process and we hope that he moves swiftly to gather the hard evidence he needs not just to cancel licences of the manipulators, or renew those held by business people who are fit holders of the licences, but also see if further action can be taken in the criminal or civil courts.

Under the last gazetted formula for the fuel trade a 10 000 litre delivery gives a mark-up of $1000 for the oil company, $800 for the tanker and $1500 for the service station.

These three businesses have expenses of course that must come out of those mark-ups: staff costs, safety equipment, the requirement to ensure that maintenance is perfect when dealing with an inflammatory product, Zesa charges, rates, rents and the like. But we see how the legitimate businesses pay those bills and make a profit. How do the rest do that? Many suspect cheating.

This is why the Minister has to weed out the non-compliant, and why the business people who are on his side must help him, so that he can deal with real issues, which might mean amended mark-ups if inflation has eroded viability, with those who are actually doing the work with the cheats cut out.

Edmore Ndudzo

There are basically two fundamental issues affecting the supply of potable water in Harare.

Firstly, this relates to the quality of drinking water, and secondly, the availability.

There have been various tests proving that water pumped into people’s homes by the Harare City Council (HCC) does not meet the expected World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.

Most notably, the immediate-past Mayor of Harare, Bernard Manyenyeni, famously noted that however arguable the quality of water in Harare is, it basically fails the “eye test”.

Residents are often cautioned to either treat the water themselves — by either using chlorine or boiling it — before consuming it.

It is equally worrying that tests have also proven that borehole water in most low-density and high-density suburbs is contaminated.

But one need not be told that water from unprotected sources such as shallow wells is hazardous.

City fathers have the responsibility to ensure that residents have access to potable water.

Lest we overlook or forget it, the provision of safe, potable water is now considered a fundamental human right under the new Constitution.

But City of Harare is now rationing water ostensibly because of the low water levels in Harare’s raw water sources and soaring costs of water treatment chemicals, most of which are imported.

Currently, the water rationing exercise is considered to be unavoidable.

 Past Experiences

My perspective on the issue might be helpful since I was intimately involved as a senior technocrat in processes of supplying potable water when I joined HCC in 1983.

After independence, the city had Lake Chivero — then called Mcllwaine — as its biggest and main source of raw water.

There were other smaller water sources such as Prince Edward Dam Complex, near Chitungwiza, which also augmented supplies.

These supplies also catered for the Greater Harare area, which covers Chitungwiza, Ruwa, Norton and other satellite towns.

After realising that Lake Chivero could not solely meet demand for Harare and surrounding satellite towns, HCC then decided to link, through an underground water tunnel (of about 20 kilometres), with the much bigger Darwendale Dam (now Lake Harava), near Norton.

The dam was also linked to the water treatment plant at Morton Jeffrey.

Indeed, the tunnel was duly constructed and commissioned by the then Finance Minister Bernard Chidzero.

Overall, the project was led by HCC’s department of works.

It has to be noted that raw water from Harava was of a better and higher quality than that from Chivero as the latter suffered from high pollution, particularly from industrial and commercial waste.

The situation seems to have deteriorated further as raw sewerage is being discharged into rivers feeding into Lake Chivero.

Added to this is the hyacinth weed that is choking the lake.

Most notably, the construction of the new tunnel also doubled the pumping capacity at the water works through the installation of bigger pumps, which relayed the precious liquid to water control reservoirs in Warren Park.

Further, the city resolved to duplicate the pipeline which carries treated water from the Morton Jeffrey to the reservoirs.

I was recently disappointed after learning that HCC has since inexplicably decommissioned the tunnel connecting Chivero and Harava dams.

All these works, however, were funded by the Belgium-headquartered European Investment Bank.

Demand for water has been rising owing to expanding settlements.

At the time, the World Bank also financed the construction of high-density houses in Budiriro through the World Bank Urban Two Development Programme.

The Americans, using the US Aid Agency, also bankrolled two phases of the Kuwadzana High-density Housing Development Project.

Almost all these water supply projects were financed through negotiated concessionary facilities that hinged on well-thought-out and judiciously crafted repayment schemes.

The loans were serviced after generous grace periods.

For the medium term, the city fathers then planned on drawing water from another source of raw water to cater for growing demand.

Constructing a new dam, Kunzvi Dam, in Goromonzi was mooted.

A new water treatment plant was also considered.

In addition, there were also grand plans for a mini-hydroelectricity generating plant at Kunzvi Dam and irrigation facilities for the surrounding communities.

It was envisaged that water from Kunzvi Dam would be pumped first into control reservoirs at Letombo Reservoir Complex in Msasa, Harare, and, in turn, water from the reservoir would be redistributed to north-eastern suburbs such as Greendale, Mabvuku and Tafara including eastern satellite towns such as Ruwa and Zimre plus existing pipelines and reservoirs to feed the northern areas.

Growing water supplies from Chivero and Harava Dams — and from the proposed Kunzvi Dam — would have meant enhancing and upgrading the reservoirs’ capacity, especially at the Letombo Reservoirs Complex.

It would also have meant increasing the sewage treatment capacity for the whole city, particularly at Firle Treatment Plant near Glen View and Crowborough Sewage Treatment Plant in Mufakose.

The 30-year Harare Water Supply and Distribution Strategic Plan also involved relaying new pipes with a bigger diameter.

It is not surprising that HCC is now plagued by continued pipe bursts.

When I voluntarily left City of Harare in 1993, notable and decent progress had been made or achieved under the Harare Water Supply Strategic Plan, with the only most notable and major exception being the construction of Kunzvi Dam.

In Zimbabwe’s case, however, most planned investments were frustrated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the West, which were prompted by the long overdue fast-track land reform programme implemented by Harare at the turn of the millennium.

Unfortunately, the embargo crimped the country’s ability to service some of its debts, particularly to some of these foreign creditors.

With the current efforts by the new political administration to re-engage with the West, it is hoped that some of these major water and electricity supply projects would also be revived and expedited.

In recent years, China extended a US$144 million loan for the rehabilitation of Morton Jeffrey Water Works.

It also financed the extension of Kariba South Hydroelectric Power Station.

Encouragingly, Beijing has agreed in principle to finance the construction of Kunzvi Dam.

Government, therefore, has to use this financing window from the Chinese to sponsor urgent water and power projects.

China recently unveiled a US$60 billion resource envelope for African countries.

 Leaks and revenue collections

It is disingenuous to claim that water is being rationed because of the low dam water levels since both Chivero and Harava are more than 65 percent full.

To add insult to injury, the continued loss and leakage of treated water from Morton Jeffrey has now reached alarming, unprecedented and outrageous levels.

Unofficial estimates suggest that more than 60 percent of treated and or clean water from Morton Jeffrey is lost through leakages from old and rusting pipes, including illegal connections.

The antiquated pipes also contribute to the strange colour and odour of the water that is pumped in people’s homes.

Most disconcertingly, of the 40 percent of treated water that eventually finds its way into people’s homes, less than half of it is paid for by ratepayers.

HCC desperately needs to improve its revenue collections, for this might be important for servicing any future loans to the local authority.

Lastly, the city also needs to stop the haemorrhage of foreign currency through sourcing its water treatment chemicals locally.

In any case, one of the main imported chemicals, aluminium sulphate, has a ready substitute from the local market, which is produced by Chemplex Corporation, a subsidiary of IDC.

Its high time HCC puts its act together.

Edmore Ndudzo is the first black treasurer of the City of Harare. He was lead consultant in compilation and drafting of the Public Finance Management Act of 2009

Francis Mangeni

The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) will be launched on 7 July 2019 in Niamey, Niger, by the Heads of State and Government at an extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU).

The agreement entered into force on 30 May 2019, within 14 months after its signature on 21 March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda.

It was negotiated in just over two years.

This impetus towards closer economic integration is poised to change Africa forever. The entry into force of the ACFTA is a truly momentous event.

The irony is stark, that amidst current global trade wars, Africa is now the torch bearer of multilateralism and open economies.

However, African economic integration is developmental integration designed to promote structural transformation, rather than being a traditional FTA (Free Trade Area) obsessed primarily with market liberalisation.

ACFTA covers goods and services and has complementary programmes for infrastructure, industrialisation, agriculture modernisation, small-scale trade, as well as innovation, intellectual property, competition and investment.

There has never been a better time to invest and trade in Africa.

With a combined GDP of US$6,7 trillion in purchasing power parity, business and consumer spending at US$4 trillion, over 400 companies with revenues of over US$1 billion, 60 percent of the world’s arable land and vast strategic minerals, Africa has truly taken off.

For African political, private sector and intellectual leadership, the call of duty now is to ensure that this trajectory is irreversible, and that decent jobs and incomes are equitably generated from increasing trade and investment.

Economic Pan-Africanism has come of age.

We now have a crop of economic Pan-Africanists who have negotiated this agreement in a record period of just two years, and then ensured it entered force in just over one year.

We should harness this crop and build a sustainable intergenerational institutional memory for Africa that will keep the impetus into the future.

We must enhance capabilities to continuously make what seems impossible very easily possible.

Now is the time for the young to know what Pan-Africanism means: I am not free until everyone is free.

We must have the Africans We Want in order to build the Africa We Want; that is, a free, prosperous and peaceful Africa.

This euphoria though must have the realism to galvanise the required immediate actions before the launch of ACFTA, if it is to work.

Before trade can actually happen under ACFTA, the following should be in place: trade documents, tariff schedules, rules of origin and a system for addressing non-tariff barriers.

Countries need to be able to issue and process, especially the new ACFTA customs declarations and certificates of origin.

And the private sector, including the logistics industry, needs to be familiar with and have confidence in these documents.

This is in addition to the universal trade documents and product-specific regulatory documents, especially for agricultural and chemical products.

Tariff schedules should be in place. Without them, one would not know the payable customs duties under ACFTA on the 5 000 or so tradable products.

Bilateral negotiation of tariff offers would be too complex and take an overly long time.

Every member state/ customs territory should therefore just produce a tariff schedule without further delay, covering 90 percent of the products on which the tariff phase-down is to commence immediately.

In addition, the principle of acquis should be used.

It means that the member states in existing FTAs in the regional blocs do not have to re-negotiate anything anew among themselves.

This should be harvested into ACFTA on the basis of the agreed principle of preserving and building on the acquis (accumulated legislation, legal acts and court decisions).

The EAC-SACU tariff negotiations have been finalised within the Comesa-EAC-Sadc Tripartite Arrangement.

What has been agreed there can also be harvested into AFTA so that there are no new negotiations between EAC and SACU for the ACFTA tariffs.

These two approaches — of producing tariff schedules indicating a phase-down to zero percent customs duty over the relevant transition periods, and of harvesting the acquis — can produce tariff schedules in time for the launch of ACFTA on 7 July in Niamey.

In rules of origin, a critical number has been agreed, which is sufficient for launching ACFTA.

More progress can be made right away, however, if the rule of thumb could be agreed, setting the value of non-originating material at 60 percent. This will promote local content, back and forward linkages and value chains in African economies.

Other complementary requirements include a regional payment system that could build on current mobile payment solutions as well as the Comesa and Sadc payment systems.

These are already in use and owned by stakeholders and a continental trade portal called the African Trade Observatory, which could build on highly successful national portals around the continent.

In addition, trade facilitation programmes should be appropriately prioritised.

Time-related costs, arising from delays, are significant, estimated at over 90 percent of transport costs.

Customs-related delays result in a loss of about 23 000 jobs annually in Africa.

Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) has accordingly invested over US$500 million in trade facilitation projects in eastern Africa.

If the route of long bilateral tariff negotiations is taken, ACFTA can in the meantime be projected as a Free Trade Area for trade facilitation and not for elimination of customs duties.

While this would be quite a novelty, it would make perfect sense in reducing the cost of doing business in Africa, which is highest in the world.

Twenty four countries have ratified ACFTA within a record period of 14 months.

While impressive, this is still less than half of the 55-member states of Africa.

The high momentum on ratification should be sustained, even scaled up, driven by pro-active political leadership provided by the Heads of State and Government with the support of the African Union Commission’s Ambassador Albert Muchanga, the Commissioner for Trade and Industry.

There is quite some concern about revenue losses from tariff liberalisation, estimated at US$4 billion or up to 3 percent of GDP. Afreximbank has therefore mobilised US$1,5 billion and the World Bank also raised the same amount to support countries through loans.

The Afreximbank facility will be on a cost-recovery basis, and not profit-based.

Afreximbank has established also the Mansa programme to assist in credit rating and de-risking, with a data set of 600 000 companies already.

The name derives from the legendary Mansa Musa of the old Malian empire.

In conclusion, the African Continental Free Trade Area is here.

It changes the political and economic geography of Africa forever.

It carries the promise of a much rejuvenated Africa on a high economic growth path for social economic transformation.

The eternal challenge that will remain is to duly implement and utilise it.

Leadership in the public, private and academic sectors is required.

Africa needs you.

The author is the director of trade and customs at the Comesa Secretariat. He can be contacted on: fmangeni@comesa.int

Allan Majuru

A robust leather sector is crucial in boosting the generation of much-needed foreign currency, as well as creating employment opportunities in Zimbabwe.

A vibrant leather sector has direct positive spin-offs for Zimbabwe’s industrialisation drive, as well as efforts to improve the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, balance of trade, fiscal and foreign currency revenues and the general livelihood of communities.

According to the Africa Leather and Leather Products Institute (ALLPI), the global estimated trade value of the leather sector is over US$130 billion a year, which is six times the value of trade in meat, and this figure continues to grow.

This trade value shows that with the right support, the Zimbabwe leather sector has potential to set the country on a positive path towards sustainable economic growth, employment generation and poverty reduction.

The Zimbabwe Leather Strategy (2012-2017) reveals that the leather sector in Africa used to dominate the global market, with some countries being awarded first franchise to manufacture Nike products and other international brands such Adidas, Puma and North Star.

The strategy further stated that, until 2000, Zimbabwe used to produce more than 17 million pairs of shoes per annum, of which 4 million pairs had leather uppers. However, by 2011, shoe production had plummeted to 1 million pairs per annum.

On the demand side, Zimbabwe consumes approximately 14,3 million pairs of footwear per annum, made of leather, canvas, synthetics and plastic.

With current annual production estimated at 1million to 1,5 million pairs per year, it means that the bulk of the country’s footwear requirements are being imported.

According to statistics from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, exports from the leather sector amounted to just under US$45 million in 2018, the bulk of which was from raw hides and skins, as well as exotic leather.

However, this figure could be much higher given the huge potential that exists for the country’s leather industry.

The sector currently employs more than 5 000 people and this number is expected to grow as capacity utilisation increases.

There are currently eight tanneries operating in the country, representing small-, medium- and large-scale players that produce wet blue and finished leather.

Most of the finished leather is used in the footwear industry, which has about 12 shoe manufacturers currently operating in the country.

Finished products for both the domestic and export market include footwear and leather products such as ladies’ hand bags, leather jackets, wallets and travelling bags.

The leather sector also makes a significant contribution to the tourism sector, where products such as belts made from elephant, buffalo, crocodile and ostrich skins are popular in tourist resort areas such as the Victoria Falls.

It is against this background of untapped potential and significant contribution of the leather sector to the economy that ZimTrade, the country’s trade development and promotion organisation, has been working with leading players to improve production efficiencies and quality of products.

ZimTrade has been providing technical intervention programmes aimed at repositioning Zimbabwe’s leather sector as one of the country’s leading exporters and foreign currency earners.

ZimTrade is also working with international players such as the Netherlands-based PUM and Solidaridad Network to capacitate some players in each node in the leather value chain so that they can act as a benchmark for the rest of the industry players.

Way forward

Although investment constraints have been affecting the development of the leather sector, Zimbabwe possesses enough human resources and land that can act as low-hanging fruits in repositioning the leather sector as an export giant.

To address foreign direct investment challenges in the leather sector, there is need to establish vibrant working groups which will look into the ease of doing export business, conduct a mapping exercise to ascertain the financial support in each of the nodes in the value chain and propose how these can be financed.

There is also urgent need to address animal husbandry challenges affecting the quality of hides to ensure Zimbabwean leather is competitive on the global market. Currently, the sector is dominated by mostly small to medium enterprises and, therefore, there is a need for assistance in production techniques so that they can improve the quality of their products, especially focusing on finishing and stitching.

When the leather industry was at its peak, commercial livestock farmers used to supply the bulk of the hides and had good branding systems, which resulted in quality hides supplied to tanneries and ultimately top-quality leather produced for both the local and international markets.

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, there is not much difference between the current cattle population of around 5,4 million and that of 5,2 million recorded in 1980.

The difference is in the severity of branding and branding techniques that have dominated cattle production, reduced the quality and value of leather in Zimbabwe.

Communal farmers, who own the largest number of cattle livestock, are more concerned about the security of their cattle and branding of the hide instead of recommended branding on the neck of the animal.

Thus, there is need for incentivising farmers so that they take good care of the hide as presently, the abattoirs where hides are separated from meat, are only focusing on the weight of the beast.

In addition, most current players in the sector are using outdated machinery that is not cost-effective and use more electricity.

Currently, ZimTrade has engaged ALLPI for a scoping exercise to ascertain the funding requirements for each node that will assist as potential investors in the sector are being engaged.

This scoping exercise will be part of the plan as they assist in the implementation of the sector strategy (2019-2023) which will be launched soon.

The assistance that can come from the Government in this regard includes offering special long-term affordable funding schemes specific to the sector, especially for tanneries which are the low-hanging fruits in the value chain.

The need for coordination by sector members is of importance as there is need to push relevant authorities to support the full operationalisation of the Zimbabwe Leather Development Council.

This will assist the lobbying of the sector’s position and funding, which is vital in the resuscitation of the once-vibrant sector.

Going forward, ZimTrade will continue capacitating the sector through its export development programmes, including the Marketing and Branding for International Competitiveness training, as well as facilitating sector members’ participation in regional and international trade shows.

Allan Majuru is the CEO of ZimTrade

Liu Ying

Ten years ago, in the spring of 2009, the new president-elect Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, who had been in Kremlin for less than a year, held their first meeting in London, marking the beginning of a “reset” of US-Russian relationship that fell into a trough due to the 2008 Georgian war.

With the signing of the “New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty” (New START) as a breakthrough, the US and Russia showed a flexible and cooperative attitude on the issues of anti-ballistic missiles, NATO’s eastward enlargement, the Afghan war, and Iran nuclear issue.

They hoped to turn the page of the Cold War and ushered in a new age of bilateral relations.

However, the “reset” plan has not yet been fully implemented before it was declared “dead” following Putin’s third term as Russian president.

Since Trump took office, the US-Russian relationship has been moving forward under the constant threat of a “new Cold War” and another “reset” of bilateral relations.

On May 14, against the backdrop of an intensifying Sino-US trade war, escalation of the US-Iran conflict, and declining pressure on Trump thanks to the final “Russiagate” report, US Secretary of State Pompeo visited Russia and met with President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Both sides expressed their wish to repair bilateral relations and rebuild cooperation in many fields.

This is another attempt by Washington and Moscow to improve relations after the failure of another “reset” of US -Russia relations in the early days of Trump administration.

Some media claim that the Sino-Russian relations have reached “natural limits.”

Even though the two countries are unlikely to form alliances due to US pressure, they need to find new ways of cooperative development.

Therefore, there are speculations that if the United States and Russia pull off another “reset” of relations, Sino-Russian relations may be affected, and the trilateral relations between China, the US and Russia may change.

I believe that there is only limited room for improvement of US -Russian relations, while Sino-Russian relations are rooted in a distinctive development paradigm.

The three countries will maintain a relationship featuring both competition and cooperation for the foreseeable future.

First of all, another “reset” of US-Russian relations is unlikely to happen across the board.

Both countries will try to maintain the status quo of “limited rivalry.”

Ten years ago, a “reset” enabled the two countries to reach a certain degree of cooperation on issues such as arms control and Iran nuclear issue.

However, recently there are signs of retrogression: both countries withdraw from the INF Treaty; the renewal of New START is going nowhere; Russia questions the US policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran; Washington and Moscow can’t see eye to eye on issues such as Ukraine, Syria, and Venezuela.

As long as the structural contradictions in US-Russian relations still exist, it is difficult to fully achieve another “reset.”

Besides, the “limited improvement” of US-Russian relations will not have a material impact on Sino-Russian relations.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia.

With fruitful cooperation in politics, economy, security, culture and other fields, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has entered a new stage of development.

The driving force for cooperation between the two countries is derived from not only common development goals and values, but also the principles of equality and mutual respect that China and Russia have always adhered to, as well as the code of conduct for strengthening coordination in major policies and actions to jointly maintain regional and world peace and stability.

It is true that China and Russia also have differences in the understanding of policies, strategic priorities, and behaviours.

However, both sides can recognise and effectively control differences, and at the same time continue to expand common grounds and use mutual support in international affairs to cushion the impact of negative foreign policies.

This is the underlying reason why Sino-Russian relations can enjoy steadfast development in an ever-changing world. It is also the reason why it is difficult for external forces to drive a “wedge” between China and Russia.

Moreover, China, the US and Russia will maintain a mixed relationship featuring both competition and cooperation. With the end of the Cold War and the deepening of globalisation, countries have become ever more interconnected and interdependent.

Although competition and even confrontation between major powers are common in geopolitics, military security and ideology, these countries also have broad common interests in economic and trade cooperation, global governance and security where they need bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

Therefore, the juxtaposition of cooperation and competition is the hallmark of relations between major powers today.

Under the new circumstances, factors such as competition, interdependence and autonomy are redefining the interaction between major powers.

This also means that there will be no “see-saw” policy in which two countries are ganging up on a third country as is seen during the Cold War.

Ten years ago, in the bullish atmosphere created for the “reset” of US-Russian relations, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov symbolically pressed a red button labelled “Reset” in English and Russian.

Ironically, the Russian word on the button was incorrectly written as “Overload” due to mistakes made by the American staff.

It couldn’t be more prophetic.

Ten years later, although another “reset” is hopeful, it is under too much of a “load.”

The unstable pattern of relations among China, the US and Russia is no evidence that Kissinger’s theory of “strategic triangle” in the Cold War still applies.

The three countries need to review the sticky issues between one another and find the correct way to build a new type of relations between major powers.

Liu Ying is an associate professor at the Institute of International Relations (IIR) of China Foreign Affairs University.

Lovemore Ranga Mataire
Deputy Editor

For the first time in 15 years, Zimbabwe and the European Union last Wednesday held formal talks that are set to redefine relations between Harare and Brussels that were in the past characterised by open hostility.

It must be noted that one of the priority issues outlined by President Mnangagwa at his inauguration was the need to reintegrate Zimbabwe into the community of nations through re-engagement.

Many will remember that the frosty relations between the EU and Zimbabwe emanated from its bilateral differences with former colonial Britain, following the country’s decision to embark on a fast-track land reform programme meant to correct historical iniquities.

As a member of the EU, Britain managed to exert its influence on other member-states that in turn imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2002 in accordance with the Common Position 2002/14/CFSP.

The sanctions comprised of an arms embargo, asset freeze, travel ban on what was said to be targeted individuals and entities. The sanctions have over the years been amended, weaning out certain individuals and relaxing certain aspects.

However, the advent of the new dispensation in 2017, that led to the resignation of then President Mugabe signalled the beginning of new relations between Brussels and Harare.

While acknowledging the past frosty relations between the two parties, President Mnangagwa’s administration has consistently and persistently sought to take a different trajectory of re-engagement and rapprochement.

In essence, the talks signify the realisation of President Mnangagwa’s re-engagement policy which seeks to re-integrate Zimbabwe into the global family of nations.

The talks are taking place under the auspices of Article 8 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which governs relations between member states of the African-Caribbean Pacific regions and the European Union.

There is no doubt that the talks are a tonic for the opening of a fresh chapter that has a positive impact for Zimbabwe whose international standing had adverse effects on economic growth. The dialogue is also a fulfilment of President Mnangagwa’s 2030 vision which commits to transform the country into an Upper Middle Income Economy.

While it is early days yet to categorically pinpoint the immediate impact of the talks, it is humbling to note that the engagement is taking place in the spirit of mutual trust and focusing on a broad spectrum of issues. These include investment, human rights, rule of law, democracy and development cooperation.

The last Wednesday talks are thus a culmination of informal discussions that have been taking place since the coming into the fold of the Second Republic.

EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Tim Olkkonen who led the European accredited ambassadors could not have put it any better when he said: “The government of Zimbabwe has been clear that significant political and economic reforms are necessary for the benefit of its people. EU is there to support Zimbabwe more ahead with its reform agenda. In this, we want to be constructive, credible and a transparent partner.”

The acknowledgement by the EU of significant strides taken by the Zimbabwean government to institute reforms across the political and economic strata are likely to send positive signals across the world.

Foreign Affairs Foreign Permanent Secretary who represented the Zimbabwean delegation assured the EU bloc of the government’s sincerity in opening a new page of relations based on mutual trust and openness. He highlighted the fact that the government had already started implementing some of the reforms meant to open the democratic space, curb corruption and making it easier for foreign investment to set shop in the country.

Ambassador Manzou said the political and economic reforms that the government was implementing were key in creating a conducive environment for business and more importantly for improving the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans.

Unlike before, the gap between the two parties seem to have narrowed and one hopes that the few sticking issues would be ironed out in not so a distant future. As indicated by Mr Olkkenon, the hope is that the political dialogue will become an integral part of the relations between the EU and Zimbabwe.

Perpetual adversarial relations are not beneficial to either of the two parties. Any well-meaning Zimbabwean should thus be supportive of the engagement that is set to create and foster mutual understanding and open doors of robust trade and economic development through investment from Western countries.

A good rapport between Zimbabwe and the EU holds promise of increased investment, trade opportunities and would surely strengthen and enhance transparency.

Earlier this year, both SADC and the African Union have called for the removal of sanctions saying their continued existence stifle efforts by the new administration to undertake a new trajectory.

In a statement issued in February, SADC chair, Namibian President Hage Geingob said the regional bloc was against the continued existence of economic sanctions.

“Since coming to power, the new government of Zimbabwe has continued with concerted efforts to address socio-economic challenges and transform the economy, particularly through the Zimbabwe Transitional Stabilisation Programme, and to consolidate unity and peace in the country,” President Geingob said.

Geingob further said the Zimbabwean government’s efforts to transform the economy and bring about prosperity to the people of Zimbabwe were being negatively affected by illegal sanctions that were imposed on the country since the early 2000s.

So ultimately, the talks should eventually lead to the removal of sanctions as indications of President Mnangagwa’s sincerity in instituting reforms are apparent. These reforms include repealing of constrictive laws, the opening up and easing of the business environment, liberalisation of the media environment and dealing the scourge of corruption.

Already, the government has signed up to an IMF monitoring programme where it has committed itself to political and economic reforms in a bid to set a track record of fiscal discipline likely to result in debt reduction and future financing opportunities.

We chronicle the political life of Cde Norman Makotsi, whose nom de guerre was Cde Lecture. The liberation war fighter narrates his early life to our Deputy News Editor, Levi Mukarati. He also gives insights on his uncle Cde Nesbert Makotsi, who is famous for being part of a group that killed the first white man in Rhodesia in 1964 to mark the liberation war.

Q: The mention of your name, Norman Makotsi, triggers a few questions – how are you linked to Nesbert Makotsi of the Crocodile Commando Group, which is famous for killing the first white person in Rhodesia. Can you tell us who you are in that matrix?

A: Nesbert Makotsi was my uncle. My father, John, was first born in his family and Nesbert came after him.

Uncle Nesbert is the one who introduced me to politics.

At one point, I lived with him in Bulawayo when he was on the run for partaking in the killing of the white man.

But you ask who I am and how I fit in Cde Nesbert’s life, so let me begin my story.

My name is Norman Makotsi. I was born on 6 June 1950 in Mutemererwa Kraal, Rusape, Makoni District in Manicaland Province.

My father’s name was John while my mother is called Netty. I am second born in a family of eight.

My parents were peasant farmers, so I grew up herding cattle as well as helping in subsistence farming activities at our rural home. Later, during the war, I was to be known as Cde Lecture.

In 1958, I enrolled at a nearby school – St Peters Tokoyo – in Mutungagore for Sub A. I was at that school until I completed Standard Six in 1966.

In 1967, I left the rural area to live with my mother’s brother, Misheck Kapumha, in Bulawayo.

I was seeking employment opportunities.

With the assistance of uncle Kapumha, I managed to get a job as a gardener at a house in one of the low density suburbs. My employer was white and his name was Mr Habercook.

It was my first employment and I was excited. My monthly salary was two pounds.

I worked for Mr Habercook for about six months before getting another job, again as a gardener.

My second job was at the residency of Mr and Mrs Bowden and Streaker, where my monthly salary was four pounds. That was in 1969.

In 1970, I left the job to join Morden Furnishers Bulawayo, as a time recording clerk.

Q: From gardener to time recording clerk, how was that possible since the new job required one to have specialised training?

A: When I got the job, my new employer organised my training at Dunlop. The training was for a few weeks before I went back to assume the duties at Morden Furnishers.

My duties were mainly clocking the times for all employees, that is, what time they got to work, left for lunch, returned and knock off for the day.

Back then, most people were paid based on their productive hours.

Ndiri pabasa ipapo ndakasangana nababamunini, my father’s young brother – Peter Makotsi – who was working for Rhodesia Railways and was based there in Bulawayo.

He had been transferred to work in Zambia and I was lucky, at the time I met him, because he wanted someone to stay at his house.

Shortly after moving into the house, my other uncle, Nesbert, came to stay with me.

Nesbert is one of the members of Crocodile Commando Group that had killed a white man, Petrus Johannes Andries Oberholzer in 1964, before some of the members went into hiding while the others were arrested.

Since the incident, Uncle Nesbert would move from one place to the other, conducting sabotage acts until he finally left for military training in Mozambique in 1972.

He was to become a mechanic at Chimoio. After independence, he was employed as a mechanic at CMED. He died in 2006 and is buried at Manicaland Provincial Heroes Acre.

Q: Can you provide elaborate details on what Nesbert Makotsi was up to while in Bulawayo?

A: At first I was not aware of his political activities. I had grown up knowing that he was an assistant mechanic specialising in earth moving machines, especially front-end loaders, dozers and catapillers.

He worked in Mt Darwin at a private company.

When we were staying in Bulawayo, that is when he began opening up on his political activities.

That is also when he told me that he had been part of a group that included Enock Muteveri Sithole, Duly Shadreck or One from China, James Dhlamini, Furanai Masunda and Victor Mlambo, which killed a white man in the Skyline Area in Melsetter, now Chimanimani.

Since we were living together, vaindiudza kana vakuenda for the secret meetings nevamwe vavo in Bulawayo.

Ndinozviziva nekuti babamunini Nesbert was open to me at that time nekuti taigara tose.

He was a person who had developed natural hate for the whites.

I think the killing incident toughened him because, to me, he looked brave and determined to end white rule.

It was his sheer conviction and determination that the whites in government should leave the country, vatema vazvitonge.

Because this was a man I was with daily, I also began developing an interest in politics.

I saw Uncle Nesbert make petrol bombs in the house. These, he told me, were to be used to sabotage some white owned companies in Bulawayo.

It was also the same time he taught me how to make a petrol bomb using sand, fertiliser, matchsticks and petrol.

At times, he would leave home and return after three to seven days.

During his absence, vainge vaine vamwe vakomana launching destructive acts against white owned businesses or infrastructure.

Since I knew Uncle Nesbert’s activities, I then began accompanying him to some of the secret meetings that were being organised for the youth in Bulawayo.

After about six months of staying together, he then left saying he wanted to see his family in Rusape.

He had a wife and five children and that was the last I heard of him until independence.

Cde Nesbert Makotsi had crossed to Mozambique in 1971. But before he left, we later learnt, he had taken a group of school children from Mt Darwin and crossed with them into Mozambique.

Taking the political route

Since Cde Nesbert Makotsi had introduced me to the Zapu youths in Mpopoma, Tshabalala, Mzilikazi and Sizinda, I became active in politics. I should say my political life started in Bulawayo

When he left, I was already chairman of Sizinda branch and our leader in Bulawayo, as a whole, was Cde Sidney Malunga.

We also had youths who included Nziramasanga, Agabus Mukarakate, Mashangwe, Nyagomo, Mupoperi and Bhebhe. This was 1971.

I should mention that I did not partake in any sabotage acts then.

I was more involved in meetings to discuss how people were recruited for military training outside the country.

Our meetings were secret because, at that time, the Rhodesian special branch was on the look for any political activities.

Taipanana ma passwords ataishandisa kana mumwe asvika pamba kuti avhurirwe door.

Chimwe ndechekuti ma meeting aiitwa nevanhu vasingapfuuri eight nekuti we didn’t want even the neighbours to know. Kwaiva nema sell-outs akawanda during that time.

Our meetings mainly discussed recruitment of youths for military training outside the country.

Nziramasanga was to leave the country for Botswana, where he received the youths we had recruited.

What would happen in the recruitment exercise is that, when we held the meetings, there were one or two youths who would have joined us for the first time.

If such individuals or even some among us felt they were ready for training, we would then facilitate their journey.

The recruits would first go to our contacts in Plumtree and get interviewed before being sent to Nziramasanga, who would also vet them and later send them to Zambia.

That same year, 1971, I was involved in a fracas with one of my white bosses at Morden Furnishers, Mr Voss, who was production manager.

As time recording clerk, there were periods when everyone would be doing their duties and I would not be busy.

One day, during the period of less work, I took a newspaper and began to read.

As I was reading, Mr Voss came to me demanding an explanation for my actions during work hours.

Before I could apologise, he began shouting at me.

He called me ‘a lazy kaffir’ and slapped me in the face.

That did not go down well with me and we started fighting.

We were restrained by other employees and I left the workplace to go home.

After about two days, some of my work colleagues came home pleading that I return to work.

They said Mr Voss had apologised, through them, and was not considering firing me.

But I had decided to quit the job and the next day I went to collect what was due to me, for the days I had worked that month.

I did not spend more than two months out of employment and towards the end of 1971, I got a job at Southern Sun Hotel, now Holiday Inn Bulawayo.

At the hotel, I was trained as a switchboard operator.

As I worked, I continued with my political activities – conducting recruitments and strategising sabotage acts against white owned businesses and government properties.

Then in 1972, there was an advertisement for several jobs at Hotel Redcliff in Kwekwe, which was being opened.

I applied as a switchboard operator and was invited for an interview in March 1972.

I passed the interview and started work the following month.

At the hotel, I met many people, including Douglas Mahiya, who was also a switchboard operator.

I also met Raymond Klaus, Peter Flavian and Bernard Chekenya.

But I got closer to Douglas Mahiya and began political activities in Redcliff before joining other youths in Kwekwe.

I was to become Zapu youth chairman for Kwekwe, Mahiya was deputy.

Our structures included Naison Muroyiwa, who was housing officer for Redcliff.

As housing officer, he had a telephone and that is the one we used to communicate with the youths in other areas.

We also had Peter Flavian and Chekenya, but many people did not want to be on the forefront.

It was me and Mahiya who were very active.

Then in 1973, after having addressed a political meeting at Amavheni Hall with Mahiya, the address was published in Moto, a weekly community newspaper.

I remember I was working on a Sunday with our receptionist, Cathy Roberts, who was reading the magazine.

She then read the article and began to engage me on my involvement in politics.

In no time, she was angry and began insulting me.

I remember her saying, “Norman, you are just funny and difficult to understand, just like your fellow Africans.

“Why is it that you do not appreciate that we rescued you from the jungle, gave you clothes, taught you how to eat decent food and even gave you jobs?”

Then she went on to say, “But you kaffirs.”

I stood up and slapped her in the face before she could go on.

Cathy sensed the danger, got up, ran into one of our managers’ offices and locked herself inside.

The manager was not in at the time.

She later emerged from the office apologising and we made peace.

Cathy then gave me an assurance that she would not tell anyone of the incident.

I also made the same promise, but I was to tell my friend, Mahiya.

After about two months, I took some off days and came here, to the rural areas in Rusape.

While here, I was later told that there had been a discussion amongst the white employees at Redcliff Hotel, during a lunch break, where one of the workers mentioned the word ‘kaffirs’ in reference to blacks.

Cathy was present and she cautioned the colleague against saying such words in front of me. Cathy added that she had said ‘kaffir’ to me and I retaliated by beating her.

She was just talking, but that was not good news to the other white colleagues who immediately agreed to take action against me.

To be continued next week

Most people clumsily stumble through life thinking that intelligence is similar to wisdom.

Well, it isn’t!

Intelligence is natural, but wisdom is preternatural. Similarly, while intelligence is worldly, wisdom is otherworldly.

You see, there is definitely a nuanced difference between the two, pretty much like the distinction between foolishness and stupidity; or better still, beer and whisky.

(Well, as a disclaimer, the pious Bishop, as a teetotaller, takes neither of the latter [wink] concoctions – no matter how wise you think them to be)

So, in essence, intelligence is only but a strand of wisdom.

You cannot be wise without being intelligent, but you can be intelligent without necessarily being wise.

In our culture, wisdom is like wine: it matures with time, and this is precisely the reason why it is reposited in hoary old men and women. They are the avatars of this invaluable trait that has shaped our civilisation throughout the Ages.

And one of the key lessons that our civilisation has been taught by these wise man – through both folklore and lore – relates to totemism, which is a system of belief in which humans are said to have kinship or a mystical relationship with a spirit-being such as an animal. In Bishop Lazi’s culture, one of the most revered creatures that walks, or rather swims, the Savannah plains and rivers is the crocodile.

Having grown up in a little village where the fabled Save River splits Buhera and Zviyambe, the Bishop definitely knows why this reptile inspires both awe and dread.

With an uncanny ability to inconspicuously blend with its environs, this four-legged monster usually reconnoitres at river banks while basking in the sun. Often mistaking it for a log, ill-fated prey, including human beings, venture into murky, shallow waters, prompting the croc to surreptitiously slip into the water without making so much as the faintest of noises.

Using both speed an d stealth, the reptile torpedoes towards its prey at a mystically-calibrated depth that doesn’t stir the water.

Whenever you hear the sound of the water break, accompanied by an uproarious splash, it’s usually an unfailing kill. And this, dear reader, is the reason why our elders always idiomatically explain that a crocodile never forages for food, but its meal always neatly presents itself like a wrapped Christmas gift (Garwe haridye chekupamba, charo chinoza neronga).

Prawn-Munching Brigade

All this is a lesson that is yet to be learnt by the prawn-munching brigade amongst us that are investing every ounce of energy to make sure that the country’s economic reform programme comes to nought.

Having built filthy riches over the past two decades and invested in money-printing strategic sectors of the economy, these influence-peddlers believe that everyone and everything has a price. They buy powerful – nay  very powerful — friends across the political divide; they buy Lady Justice to look the other way; they buy newsman to see and hear no evil; they buy law enforcers so that they remain blind to their indiscretions; and worse of all, they buy forex on the black market.

While painful for the majority of Zimbabweans, including Bishop Lazarus, the current painful market aberrations and chaos provides these greedy maggots with daily rich pickings.

They sit in commodious air-conditioned offices setting forex rates, while their minions trawl our cities mopping up the greenback.

Through weaponising black market exchange rates, which are even being absurdly used by vegetable vendors to set prices, they are determined to ensure that whatever Mthuli and Mangudya does won’t succeed.

For some time, after Government began its currency reforms on October 1 last year, the exchange rate – then pegged at 1:3 – held steady for more than six months up until March 30 this year, when it inched up to 1:4.

It snailed up to 1:5 at the beginning of May.

However, dear reader, it all went haywire from May 21, when fuel prices were adjusted to $4,89 for diesel and $4,97 for petrol.

Fuel importers also began getting forex at the interbank rate.

The next day, rates jumped to 1:7 before quickening to 1:8 in just eight days. Curious.

But these clever-and-a-half comrades have complicated labyrinthine links with their minions, which help them escape culpability through deniability. So you cannot name them and shame them, lest you be sued to your last undergarment.

Link them to the crime is clearly not always easy, so they think that their ivory towers are beyond the incredibly long arm of the law.

In his recent autobiography “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership”, former FBI director James Comey indicated how much easier  it is to nail down clumsy drug-peddlers than cunning white-collar executives.

“In a drug-dealing prosecution, of which I had done many, the mission for the government was simply to connect the defendants to the transaction. If federal agents burst into a hotel room and find a kilo of heroin piled in the middle to the table, everybody sitting at that table is going to jail. . .

“In the corporate fraud case, the challenge was reversed. . .We would know who was sitting at the table and exactly what the deal was. But everybody at the table would say they had absolutely no idea that this. . .was illegal. It fell to investigators and prosecutors to prove the content of a person’s mind beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of twelve, who must unanimously agree that the government met its burden.”

But Bishop Lazi would recommend the Book of Psalms to these Gucci comrades who chant revolutionary slogans during the day, but burn the midnight oil during the night in pursuance of their of their parochial and greedy interests.

“Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed; the offspring of the wicked will perish.

The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.”(Psalm 37: 27-29)

Psalms 106:3 is equally succinct: “Blessed are those who act justly, who always do what is right.”

These self-deluding Gucci comrades, who confuse the crocodile for a log by thinking that a Second Republic is a false dawn, must think again.

They are walking in murky waters.

While the calm waters might give them a false sense of security, they must know that something is definitely in the water.

Be on the lookout for the uproarious slash.

Bishop out!

Ranga Mataire
Writing Back

Last week’s instalment of Writing Back torched a storm from both Rhodies who once served in the notorious Selous Scouts unit and the usual ‘black’ liberals who were apocalyptic in their condemnation of the article referring to it as a “diversionary anecdote” or rather an antidote to the current challenges the country was facing.

Some shouted that Coltart was not a Selous Scout, but a BSAP officer. It is as if blacks must pick a favourite from the many inter-feeding tentacles of a single Rhodesian security beast.

Rhodies’ responses were rather amusing but predictably unrelenting, unapologetic, impenitent and even tried to add some detail to what they called their “pride contribution in the fight against terrorism and preservation of white privilege.”

Both reactions, from the Rhodies and pretentious “black liberals” reminded me that, far from having crossed the colonial Rubicon, our thinking, our perspectives, our memory and our vision have at a subconscious level been so damaged that we think that the past no longer matters to our current state of affairs.

One needs not go far to see how active Rhodies are in preserving their “history” in colonial Rhodesia. The social media is awash with numerous Rhodie websites which commemorates specific dates of “victory”.

As it happens, a South African journalist secretly added my name to one of these Rhodie social media groups as a way for me to gauge the thinking of present day Rhodies.

In no time, I was fished out. One member, Leon Dietrich, now a resident of South Africa, bitterly complained about my presence, screaming and frothing: “ADMIN…..PLEASE REMOVE THESE MEMBERS AS THEY ARE NOT LIKE MINDED AND DO NOT SYNC WITH OUR GROUP.”

But before being shown the exit, I was a victim of verbal lashing and was “re-schooled” about Rhodesian history.

One member had no kind words for the MDC Secretary for Finance, David Coltart, whom he described as a coward who had rushed to South Africa just before Zimbabwe’s independence to get an education as a way of “cleansing himself” of blame in the murder of the black populace.

While any sane person will find the discussions on Rhodie online platforms repulsive and repugnant, one surely has to respect how this group – defeated, isolated and scattered as it is – still strives to preserve and safeguard its history and memory.

Ironically, and in contrast, the same black liberals that cheer these same Rhodies and excuse their past are the ones that constantly peddle the line that the past no longer matters.

The same past that the Rhodies preserve, is the one that their black askaris tell us we should forget.

History indeed matters. History is crucial in making us understand the linkages between past and present and in turn have a better understanding of the condition of being human.

Penelope J. Corfield of the University of London places history at the centre of all human development saying the past “is essential for ‘rooting’ people.”

Indeed, people who are rootless live rootless lives, often causing a lot of damage to themselves and others in the process.

And our black hero Steve Biko also teaches us that people without a knowledge of history are like a car without an engine, they just cannot move. As a people once colonised, we need to re-affirm, re-assert and re-construct our well-being for future generations. Colonialism left mental scars on our faculties. This is why Thomas Sankara says: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

I think we must never make a mistake of thinking that the New Dispensation is about the abrogation of history and memory. Far from it, the November 2017 transition was and is about reconnecting with the foundational ethos of the revolutionary ZANU-PF. It was and is about restoring the Legacy of the selfless sacrifice of thousands of black people who fought side by side with armed freedom fighters to dislodge colonial rule.

This is precisely the reason why President Emmerson Mnangagwa this week had to issue a warning that the mantra “Zimbabwe is Open for Business” does not mean that Zimbabwe is open for abuse.

Of course, Zimbabwe is conscious of a changing world; a connected world that entails engaging with everyone for the bilateral good. But that does not mean we engage blindfolded, unconscious of history and how that history informs the present and the future.

We seriously need to disabuse ourselves of the notion of being defined by artificial time-markers. In the words of Dr Tafataona Mahoso, “slavery, apartheid and colonialism are all characterised by splitting, which is why our discourse is presented as pre-colonial, pre-modern, post-colonial, pre-modern, post-colonial, post-modern and even post-racial, according to Barak Obama.”

We still have not transcended the Rubicon. Our struggle is far from over. We need to reflect on why Rhodesians are still fervently concerned about preserving their history and memory and yet as blacks we are told to put the past behind us. Rhodesian writers like Jim Parker and Peter Stiff continue to write narratives that glorify and extol Rhodesia.

It is not a case of self-appeasement, it is about maintaining and preserving their own memory. Memory makes one rooted. Memory is the fuel that propels a sense of pride and works as a springboard for inspirational reference for future generations.

President Mnangagwa is conscious of history and how it informs the present. The revolution he is leading is not a battle of fine catch-phrases, fiery speeches and populist rhetoric. The revolution he is leading in the Second Republic is not about sloganeering or coming up with code-words. The revolution he is leading is about the collective effort of all nationals in transforming reality and improving the concrete situation of the masses.

We will definitely get there!

There is need for concentrated efforts by police, public and official systems to curb crime which many believe is on the increase and certainly the load-shedding and transport woes have increased dangers at times and in places that were relatively safe.

Another factor is that some suburbs and communities have put in place simple but effective measures to deter crime, but without reducing the number of criminals. That means they tend to move into areas where there is less security giving apparent rises in crime. The obvious answer is to extend the areas with better security. While many victims of crime are critical of the police for not being on patrol at the time and place of the theft or mugging, we all have to realise that the police cannot be everywhere. But we also believe that as a start for better policing more active patrols are required.

At one time there were bicycle patrols in many urban areas. These were effective in suppressing crime. Police on the beat rarely make arrests, as very few criminals are stupid enough to commit a crime in front of police. What they do is keep criminals off the streets as well as being able to check up on suspicious people, for example someone carrying large bags or suitcases at midnight.

Neighbourhood watches and similar community efforts have also been successful in putting effective patrols on the street to deter crime. While these still exist in a few suburbs, enthusiasm waned in most areas. But they can easily be restored. All police stations have a community services officer who can help co-ordinate such volunteer efforts and ensure that everyone understands the fairly limited role of volunteers, to deter crime not to act as vigilantes doing the work of trained police officers.

But the public can do a great deal more with no effort. Thieves steal stuff to sell, not to use themselves. If everyone just thought seriously about what they were buying and where, the market for stolen goods could well vanish. Why would someone, for example, think that everything was on the up-and-up if they buy a very cheap second-hand phone from a vendor on the side of the road without a shred of documentation? They must at least suspect that they are the final recipient of stolen property.

At the same time rules and regulations for selling second-hand goods can be upgraded and enforced. There was a time when every dealer in second-hand goods kept a register of what they bought and sold with the names, ID numbers and addresses of the supplier and the eventual buyer recorded. These were open for inspection by the police and did help tremendously in recovering stolen property and arresting the thief.

Such system methods have worked exceptionally well in one area. Car theft used to be a serious and growing problem. It was largely defeated by making it impossible to sell or export stolen vehicles. Everyone is irritated by having to get police clearance before selling a car or driving out of the country, but that is the basic system that made car theft not worth the candle. At the same time an innovative judge, backed up by the Supreme Court when the appeal was heard, ensured that the basic sentence for car theft would start at around seven years jail, adjusted after hearing evidence in mitigation and aggravation. The combination of ensuring that stolen cars could not be registered or even licensed, killing the market and having a serious sentence for those who stupidly decided to take the risks almost wiped out the crime.

So bureaucracy can help cut crime, which is one reason to enforce rules for buying and selling second-hand goods. It would also be useful, of course, if people kept the serial numbers of their phones and other appliances so that the police checking up on properly kept records had something to work with. Any organised campaign against dealing in stolen property would require a lot of records.

Proper licensing and vetting of those dealing in second-hand goods would also help. There is no need to push pavement vendors into starvation, but if someone had a list of these people and their addresses and if they were forced to keep records as a quid-pro-quo for tolerance, they would be less of a conduit for stolen goods, especially phones, and more of a way to prevent such crime.

Other cultural changes have had positive effects on crime prevention. The scarcity of banknotes and coins has meant that few people have very much in their pockets or wallets, so pickpocketing has diminished as again few criminals want to go to jail for stealing someone’s bus fare. It also means that there has been a more determined assault on mobile phones, especially with the move to near universal ownership of smart phones. But those, unlike banknotes, have numbers and need a buyer. If records were kept and the honest majority refused to buy suspect phones that crime could be virtually eliminated.

We don’t think that crime needs to be tolerated directly or indirectly. But it is not something that the police can cope with alone, although they can and should do more. It requires every single person to co-operate and to help ensure criminals are kept off the streets and cannot profit from their crimes.