Zimbabwe the way forward

Good Evening my fellow Zimbabweans,

I would firstly like to offer my condolences to the bereaved families and offer some words of encouragement to the victims of cyclone Idai that affected the eastern parts of our country this past week. Our thought and prayers as a nation are with you all.

In the week Zimbabweans regardless of their tribes, political, religious and cultural affiliation joined hands in working together in finding ways out of this disaster and offering a helping hand in whatever way possible post the disaster period.

This great force of unity in disaster has reminded me of the previous opinion shared on the eve of the election result announcement titled The Zimbabwean Dream. In the article I had concluded on how the nation was and still is divided politically. Observing this divide I had tried to reduce tensions post the result announcement. I honestly knew that any result in any direction was definitely going to trigger a strong reaction. The objective of the article was on bringing out the fact that we all had shared and still continue to share a single Zimbabwean dream even though as political parties we had articulated it in different ways. Most importantly we all need each other in making this dream come true.
A day after this publication on the 1st of August 2018 it was unfortunately to have lost 6 lives due to these divide tensions. When the election results were finally announced, analysing the official or even the claimed voter tabulation tallies, all attest to this divide reality. Without saying much I will in this address repeat the publication in retrospect.
                            
THE ZIMBABWEAN DREAM Published by Newsday 31/07/2018
The Zimbabwean dream was the major issue of the 30th of July 2018 election as this was highlighted by all the major political party campaigns. In the article I focused on three distinct but significant political campaign views of this Zimbabwean dream, their mind setting effects and fulfilment requirements.

I started first by apologizing to those political parties to which I did not take time to analyse their political campaign views of this Zimbabwean dream. I felt that although we now have many political parties and views of this Zimbabwean dream in essence all these views are fundamentally similar. I integrated the (MDC Alliance) Nelson Chamisa, (APA) Nkosana Moyo and (ZANU-PF) Emerson Mnangagwa's vision of this ideal Zimbabwe into one as I believed and still believe that these are all in union vital for the country to move forward.

Why say all in union? Yes all in union because the agendas and aspirations of these political parties and campaign views capture the three stages required in the development of a prosperous nation. The first represented the future with it what can be achieved, then the next represented the present with it what should be done with the last represented the past with it lessons of worth.

After reviewing these three election manifestos, I truly believed and to now still believe that they were all in essence similar in their key fundamental areas like land title, agricultural investment, international community re-engagement, the fight against corruption, mining, tourism and the need to retool and expand our production industries.

Now that being said they were some key issues that were captured by these three campaigns which are worth noting as key attributes needed in harnessing this great Zimbabwean Dream.

The Nelson Chamisa campaign came with the imagination and vision for a nation which is naturally resourced like Zimbabwe. With Zimbabwe's wealth of educated, talented and gifted population the campaign possessed a dream on how far we can go to build a modern state. Many people castigated Chamisa for this mind changing and futuristic campaign saying that this vision was pure nonsense. The most notable international critic was the British Hardtalk journalist Steven Sackur. We might have been a colony of the British but we are no longer bound by their idealism. Britain is a country that was built decades if not centuries ago and we are at different stages of our development.
 
By God's grace I had the opportunity in February last year to visit the UAE city of Dubai. Dubai is land built out of dreams were 20 years ago it was just a pile of sand. The principal in Dubai is that the crazier the proposed project is, the more likely this crazy proposal will be built. There is no room for mediocrity and ordinary thoughts and Zimbabwe aiming to be the leading nation in Africa has to possess these attributes to realise this dream.

What was ironic about the UAE was that it only has two major resources in crude oil and sand. The UAE's crude oil is estimated to be exhausted by the year 2023. Seeing the figures its leadership made long term strategic plans to transform the economy years ago to be the hub for international commerce, trade and tourism. The country then built mega shopping malls, futurist hotels and sporting facilities. The city also engineered artificial islands to add to its coast line and constructed a state of art transport network. These entire investments were made in order to transform their economy to be tourism and commerce based.

Zimbabwe is in a unique position as it does not only have two major resources but an abundant number. Zimbabwe henceforth can strategically design its economy to be based a number of sectors.        
Our liberation struggle was mainly aimed at reversing ownership to the means of production i.e. the land, the mines and removal of segregation laws. We have moved on from this stage now as the land is now in the hands of us the black majority and the companies are also now possessed by us the black population.

The problem with this repossession phase we had especially in terms of companies taken using the indigenisation law, is the difficultly of managing something you did not create or build. No matter how professional or educated a population might be, things that you just possess or inherit without any effort led to this situation where we no longer maintain our road networks, the repossessed companies have crumbled and the productivity on those possessed farms is ever low. This is so because of the lack of value we place on these farms, farm equipment, companies and inherited infrastructure.
In recent years the Joina City building was opened in Harare. Although the country is still experiencing economic difficulties there is a different level of value placed around and within the building. People make it a point to dress well around that area because it is the symbol of this generation not a product of the repossession phrase.

This was the symbol of the Nelson Chamisa campaign, as it looked ahead on creation and modernising our country.

The (APA) Nkosana Moyo possessed key issues needed in our governance structures in terms of promoting accountability, the separations of powers between the executive the house of assembly and the judiciary. It might be that Dr Moyo has a banking background.  One of the key fundamental functions of a banker before investing in a client is the assessment of governance structures of the applicant's organisation, institution or country.

The current Zimbabwean constitution has with it some simple clauses that prevent this level of accountability and good governance required in harnessing this great Zimbabwean dream. Dr Moyo highlighted and made proposals to amend these provisions in his campaigns. In my previous writings I also deal with some of these provisions by asking for the repeal of section 129 Clause (K) and adoption of checks and balances in our constitution to enhance good governance and accountability.
There was no doubt that after the 30th of July election and now after this nation disaster with it drought facing the nation; Zimbabwe has to engage international money lenders for capital to finance its economic sustenance and recovery programs.

International money lenders before lending money to countries or companies within our country use rating agencies like Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings. These agencies use models which take into account a country's governance structures assessing accountability levels, institutional independency and political stability. These assessments affect interest rates as the government and our companies apply for international loans that are badly required in rebuilding and modernise our country.

The principal is that, when a country has been rated at a certain level therefore no company operating within it can access international loans possessing ratings better than the country's own.

South Africa two year ago faced a similar situation when it had its credit rating downgraded to junk status owing to the state capture sandal. To have this system removed; several votes off on confidence in the president were initiated in their parliament. In the last case a secret ballot voting system was applied were individuals within the ruling ANC then refused to be part of this patronage system by voting against Jacob Zuma their former president.

In the Supreme Court opinion on the secret ballot matter you clearly hear this issue on the separation of power being reiterated as control measures for effective governance.

Many local legal experts have expressed reservation in amending our constitution so early after adoption. It is important to note that the leading and founding democracy, The United States of America made its first ten amendments within the first four years of adoption their constitution.
When a system of governance is not working we should not be limited in perfecting it to thus prevent events like the military coup that we experienced in November 2017.  
              
Now the last campaign of significance for the Zimbabwean dream in last year's election was the Emerson Mnangagwa Zanu Pf campaign. In my introduction I said that it was a campaign that represented the past, with its lesson of worth. There is nothing that illustrates this more like the story he told his followers at the beginning of his election campaign.

The President spoke of an experience in the early years of the liberation struggle of him and other freedom fighters whist they were at Mashoko a village in Masvingo. The president recalled a Rhodesian military plane flying past were they were addressing some members of the community on their decision to fight the white settlers. One of the villagers became sceptical about the abilities of these freedom fighters. He recalled him saying "you being down here; want to fight the white soldiers who fly up there?"

The President at this campaign event went on to say "they will always be sceptics in our own abilities but unity and only unity was the quality that led to success during the liberation struggle."
Initially due to this level of scepticism, our freedom fighter operated apart from the villagers and communities. After receiving their training from their bases in Mozambique and Zambia they faced challenges in re-entering the country due to this situation. The fact that the freedom fighters operations were not coordinated with communities some member of the community sold out on them, hence many of the early attacks were unsuccessful.

The liberation struggle changed its fortunes in favour of the freedom fighters when the strategy changed; this was owing to the Chinese's Mao training extended to them by China. The principal was to unite the communities and the freedom fighters to work together. This was achieved through training the communities on the importance of the liberation struggle and the importance of the communities support in the operations of the freedom fighters. These changes you can validate impact from archived tapes of interviews of the former Rhodesian head of intelligence Ken Flower. Flower is quoted "suddenly information coming through our intelligence channels became dry and we suddenly faced massive losses."

The attacks launched by the freedom fighters became evermore successful leading to endless victories on their side. This was so because the community and the liberation fighters worked together. The liberation struggle and victory that seemed so impossible at the beginning became evermore achievable and freedom attainable.

Our beloved country has faced a similar problem over the last 20 years but being political in nature. This is a situation where two major political parties have fought fiercely to take control of total political power. These last 20 years have been characterised by one political party having a good policy programme but the other being forced by political ambition to fight this by using in some cases destructive strategies. The only exception was the unity government periods.
 
I hope that a strategic shift like the change in strategy that happened during the liberation struggle were the freedom fighter and the community decided to work together will prevail. I am very aware that the population of Zimbabwe is massively divided along these political party lines but however with all the political changes the country has experienced since November 2017, they seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. Clearly the objectives and proposed policies of our political parties have never been so similar.

I also believe that for the challenges that lay ahead no single political organisations will be able to navigate them alone considering our recent political history. Most of the issues require a united front considering the divide in our population. Some of the issues include the reintroduction of the Zimbabwean Dollars, this current national disaster, the drought facing the country and re-entry of the country into international community.

In conclusion I could have focused on weakness of these campaigns and organisations for all of them do have significant flaws. The phenomenal were they all unite together to tackle our problems will eclipse all of these flaws.

I thank you.     
Stay Blessed
#UNITEDZIMBABWE

Youtube channel - TerenceS
Twitter - @terencesimbi
Facebook – THE NEXT ZIMBABWE