Community Outreach Forum: Can Zim-Asset revive industries and turn around the economy?

205 citizens (65% men and 35% women) of Bulawayo attended the Zim-Asset Public Meeting at Small City Hall in Bulawayo.

The meeting, that took place on the 06th of February 2014, meant to afford community of Bulawayo an opportunity to assess and appraise the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) document, at the same time giving a chance for those that have read the document to give feedback.

Leading the debate on Zim-Asset at the community outreach forum was Hon. Eddie Cross, a policy analyst, MDC-T MP for Bulawayo South and member of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Elifasi Mashaba, Zanu-PF Administration Secretary for Bulawayo Province and Mr. Butler Tambo an academic from the Bulawayo Polytechnic College, Mr. Dumisani Nkomo, Habakkuk Trust Chief Executive Officer, moderated the meeting.

Key Highlights

- There was general scepticism and strong evidence from panellists and a section of the participants on failures of previous blueprints; Zim-Asset as a policy blue print may not be a problem, the problem has been the political will to create a conducive climate to support its full implementation and success. Evidence was presented in terms of plethora of other blue-prints since independence that have failed.

- Polarization continues to affect sober and objective policy engagement as seen by the fact that the pro-ZANU PF stance was defensive and that sanctions will affect success of the Zim-Asset, while alternative views where that lack of public accountability, lack of consistency and clarity with regards security of investment, corruption, and loss making parastatals will affect the success of the policy.

 - There was an unusually high turnout from ZANU PF members and a low turnout for other political groupings in Bulawayo: This may mean that ZANU PF government is not very comfortable is allowing an open debate and engagement around the Zim-Asset policy and where they cannot stop the debates, they "coach and bus" their structures to come and restrict or even disrupt meeting proceedings especially where heavy criticism is levelled against the government. For alternative political views, it may mean that they are still dealing with the July 31, aftermath which created a crisis of confidence of public presence.

 - A number of suggestions were made to improve the implementation of Zim-Asset such as dealing with issues of corruption, reform and privatization of public institutions and parastatals, review of the budget to allocate more resources to productive strategic sectors of the economy such as agriculture, infrastructure development. Other suggestions were that;

Government should look for alternative funding realise Zim-Asset objectives  such as reviving the National Railways of Zimbabwe and Cold Storage Commission which  at their pick employed a collective total of 30 000 people.

Government should securitize land to give it value to unlock its economic potential as collateral.

Government should establish the amount mineral wealth Zimbabwe has before engaging investors and traders through auctions to fetch the best deals and investment arrangements.

That some of the loss making parastatals be privatized to boost productivity and unlock resources.

That special economic zones should be declared for areas like Bulawayo as a matter  of urgency

- There are concerns that the basic assumptions to support the success of Zim-Asset are flawed as all of them do not compare with the operating context.

- In addition, it emerged that the targets which include success within 5 years were very    unrealistic and will amount to failure.

In its attempts to facilitate the participation of ordinary men and women in both urban and rural in the dialogue on key public policy issues, Bulawayo Agenda has held meetings in Masvingo and Gwanda on Zim-Asset and Community Share Ownership Schemes respectively. These continue to be platforms for interface between the policy makers/implementers and the citizens.