Opinion / Columnist
Zimbabwe's goat currency - the analysis
24 Apr 2017 at 09:40hrs | Views
Recently, Zimbabwe's primary and secondary education minister, Lazarus Dokora (PhD), suggested a goat currency. One Zimbabwean shares his views.
Suggesting that goats can be used to pay school fees is reminiscent of saying the poor can eat cakes if they do not have bread.
This shows lack of knowledge of the material welfare of Zimbabweans. Not everyone in rural Zimbabwe owns a goat. If those with goats were to use them to pay school fees for one child, their stock of goats would not cover a year's school fees for one child.
The impact of goat currency
If schools were to accept goats for payment there will be a serious problem of how to look after the goats at the school and how to dispose of the goats in a manner that realised value for the school.
If schools sell their goats, the same problems of cash will catch up with them. Who can raise the cash required to buy goats from the schools?
Even if schools used their goats as tender to buy electricity, stationery and other consumables, the buck will have to stop somewhere along the chain.
It is absolutely preposterous for a government minister to come up with such a sorry excuse for a reason as a solution.
Stop kidding about goats
While I understand our Zimbabwean penchant for making jokes out of our every misfortune and calamity, I want us to stand back and look at this proposition again. We are cheering the antics of a mentally ill person - tiri kusekerera benzi, veduwee!
As Zimbabwe sinks we make goat jokes
How can we remain in denial of the fact that there is a cash crisis because the economy has failed, the economy has failed because government is in paralysis, government is in paralysis because the same people have been in government too long and have become bereft of any new ideas?
We don't need a rocket scientist to tell us that this government is not working as it should, not doing what it is meant to do, not being what it ought to be.
If this goat business is not the ultimate death knell, I do not know what the final straw that will break the camel's back will be.
Pause for thought
Next time you post or repost, receive or share a goat joke, remember that you are adding to the anaesthetic effect, that is numbing the nation and preventing us from feeling the real pain of the injury of the mediocrity and ineptitude of a government, whose only reason for being in power is our failure to challenge it out!
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Father William Guri is a Roman Catholic priest, born and raised in Zimbabwe and living in Maryland, USA. He holds a PhD in Pastoral Care and Counselling
Suggesting that goats can be used to pay school fees is reminiscent of saying the poor can eat cakes if they do not have bread.
This shows lack of knowledge of the material welfare of Zimbabweans. Not everyone in rural Zimbabwe owns a goat. If those with goats were to use them to pay school fees for one child, their stock of goats would not cover a year's school fees for one child.
The impact of goat currency
If schools were to accept goats for payment there will be a serious problem of how to look after the goats at the school and how to dispose of the goats in a manner that realised value for the school.
If schools sell their goats, the same problems of cash will catch up with them. Who can raise the cash required to buy goats from the schools?
Even if schools used their goats as tender to buy electricity, stationery and other consumables, the buck will have to stop somewhere along the chain.
It is absolutely preposterous for a government minister to come up with such a sorry excuse for a reason as a solution.
Stop kidding about goats
While I understand our Zimbabwean penchant for making jokes out of our every misfortune and calamity, I want us to stand back and look at this proposition again. We are cheering the antics of a mentally ill person - tiri kusekerera benzi, veduwee!
As Zimbabwe sinks we make goat jokes
How can we remain in denial of the fact that there is a cash crisis because the economy has failed, the economy has failed because government is in paralysis, government is in paralysis because the same people have been in government too long and have become bereft of any new ideas?
We don't need a rocket scientist to tell us that this government is not working as it should, not doing what it is meant to do, not being what it ought to be.
If this goat business is not the ultimate death knell, I do not know what the final straw that will break the camel's back will be.
Pause for thought
Next time you post or repost, receive or share a goat joke, remember that you are adding to the anaesthetic effect, that is numbing the nation and preventing us from feeling the real pain of the injury of the mediocrity and ineptitude of a government, whose only reason for being in power is our failure to challenge it out!
----------------
Father William Guri is a Roman Catholic priest, born and raised in Zimbabwe and living in Maryland, USA. He holds a PhD in Pastoral Care and Counselling
Source - ilizwi263.com
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