Opinion / Columnist
A lesson for NGOs
20 Jul 2011 at 13:24hrs | Views
RECENT press reports about goings on at the Bulawayo Agenda, a purported non-governmental organization which has been posing as a non partisan civic society group majoring in providing a forum for debate and dialogue and as a forum for conflict resolution and nation building are a testimony that there is no way you can do wrong be corrected and continue doing wrong in the name of the people and get away with it.
The history of Bulawayo Agenda especially that it is a project that was stolen by modern day Moise Tshombes led by an ex-Rhodie Jesuit operative Fr Nigel Francis Bernard Johnson of suspect nationality is so glaring that even the seven or so donors that have continued pouring money to the project are ashamed to the dirt that they have been funding, worse still now that it has emerged that the dirty Pounds, Euros and Dollars were also being abused like armed robbery spoils.
There is no single person at Bulawayo Agenda who can stand up and dispute that the whole scam was an adulterated version of Bulawayo Dialogue which was formed on 24 May 2000 by Qhubani Moyo and Jethro Mpofu, the two activists who were elbowed away from their organization by some MDC-T functionaries acting up as civil society and working hand in glove with some CIA, M16, Osisa, Westminster Foundation and the Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI) operatives hired to dilute, pervert and convert genuine civic society activism into illegal regime machinery aiding a puppet opposition in need of a lot of hand holding.
The selling out black sons and daughters of Bulawayo and Fr Nigel Francis Bernard Johnson had no clue of what Bulawayo Dialogue was doing and why and thus went head first with eyes closed into a pool of imperial deceit and re-colonization agenda in an apparent show of subversion of the initial idea as espoused in Point 13 (b) (i) of the Nkulumane Youth Empowerment Council manifesto of April 13, 1999.
Further the creation of the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association was a clumsy attempt of silencing the then Qhubekani Dube led Ibhetshu LikaZulu that had indeed made a reputation by talking and acting about real issues affecting the people of Matabeleland and when this nonsense failed the same black fellows at Bulawayo Agenda connived with their foreign pink handlers to entice Ibhetshu LikaZulu with funding- which funding I authoritatively state was turned down and from that day chaps at Bulawayo Agenda and BUPRA started labeling Ibhetshu LikaZuku and its members un-progressive and at all costs avoided inviting them to their talk shows.
It is not a lie that Bulawayo Agenda and its surrogate sister BUPRA have been so embarrassingly embedded in MDC-T politics to an extent that its cars, personnel, furniture her and money was being used to further the interests of MDC-T in the 2008 elections and 2011 congress preparations.
No sane person can deny that several MDC-T candidates for the 2008 general elections were trained and equipped with sabotage skills under a series of dubious Bulawayo Agenda programmes like the Local Government Capacity Building and Civil Society Leadership Development projects.
That the leadership of Bulawayo Agenda decided to fire Anastasia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube on charges of corruption and or mismanagement shows that the whole Board is so afraid of (name with held) the man who superintended the use and abuse of the organization's resources during his power seeking spree in the MDC-T.
The rot at Bulawayo Agenda reveals either of two basic facts. It is either since the departure of (name with held) the donors and Board lost interest in the project to the extent of not checking financial records timeously or (name with held) was crooked enough to keep convincing stakeholders that all was in order. If the latter be true then it proves that Bulawayo Agenda and its several sub-agendas in Gwanda, Nkayi, Gweru, Lupane and Matopo were never really about the people but (name with held)'s highway ladder.
If the former be true, it might perhaps serve as a proof that the donor community is getting fed-up on funding fly-by night regime change projects and redirecting their benevolence to the Inclusive Government. This is because the plunge into debt faced by Bulawayo Agenda coincides with the donor community's heavy expenditure on various Inclusive Government projects like COPAC, JOMIC, 100 days plan and several other strategic retreats.
Let this then be a lesson to other foreign funded organizations!
The grand conspiracy of all times may be that the several demonstrations and public meetings organized by Bulawayo Agenda and BPRA on the cost and maintenance of such services as electricity and telephone bills were a ploy by these institutions to draw attention away from the heavy debts they have on ZESA, Tel one etc.
To make it worse, the former Bulawayo Agenda Director and Life Patron of BPRA Gorden Moyo is the Minister in Charge of State Parastatals and Enterprises. Minister Moyo has made all the possible noises on Parastatal Management to the extent of developing what he termed 'Corporate Governance Framework'. Perhaps someone should remind Moyo that Corporate Governance does not work when such organizations as Bulawayo Agenda make such huge defaults to service providers.
Perhaps the gods have not been fair on Gorden Moyo. At a time when he had found a new toy in government, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office post, he was unceremoniously shifted to the Ministry his former organizations owe the most. He tried his luck in the mainstream MDC-T politics and earned all sorts of tags ranging from Mafikizolo to Inswelaboya. Now all what he spent his post-teaching life building is at the brink of falling down like a tone of stones beginning with the Agenda chapters scattered around Matabeleland as if he was preparing for the federal republic he so much yearns for.
Much ado about Gorden Moyo.
As the epitaph of Bulawayo's self anointed big brother of civil society gets written, the gnashing of teeth for other organizations that had chosen to mortgage their institutional sovereignty to Bulawayo Agenda bemoans. The possibility of crumbling and closure nears reality everyday and it pains to see the efforts of brilliant young-people and women of virtue die into thin air for the sole reason that Anastacia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube failed to manage the anaconda that had swallowed several snakes in town.
Several holders of Masters Degrees from all corners of the world face joblessness. Their wives and children of varying ages face the possibility of having to fasten their belts as their bread winners redo their curriculum vitae in search of new jobs that might perhaps re-introduce the financial Liberties they enjoyed before Anastacia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube were caught.
Faced by the risk of an accusation of mourning a patient in an intensive care unit, it is prudent to give Bulawayo Agenda benefit of the doubt. The process however of resuscitating that mountain of an organization cannot happen drama free. Someone will have to be fired, someone will have to be hired, something will have to be sold, and something will have to be bought. All in the Agenda corridors need to understand that ZESA, Knight Frank, TelOne, Rainbow Hotel and NSSA are not service donors but providers of commercial services and their dues cannot be cancelled because of demonstrations and public meetings.
As the trailblazing era of Bulawayo Agenda and BUPRA reaches its Waterloo, progressive residents of Bulawayo will have to form a new forum to air their views and such a forum much keep away from partisan politics. We wait to see the real explanation in the great Weekly Agenda, one of the most informative pamphlets in town.
Busani Ncube is a freelance journalist and activist based in Bulawayo.
He is contactable on ncube.busani@gmail.com.
The history of Bulawayo Agenda especially that it is a project that was stolen by modern day Moise Tshombes led by an ex-Rhodie Jesuit operative Fr Nigel Francis Bernard Johnson of suspect nationality is so glaring that even the seven or so donors that have continued pouring money to the project are ashamed to the dirt that they have been funding, worse still now that it has emerged that the dirty Pounds, Euros and Dollars were also being abused like armed robbery spoils.
There is no single person at Bulawayo Agenda who can stand up and dispute that the whole scam was an adulterated version of Bulawayo Dialogue which was formed on 24 May 2000 by Qhubani Moyo and Jethro Mpofu, the two activists who were elbowed away from their organization by some MDC-T functionaries acting up as civil society and working hand in glove with some CIA, M16, Osisa, Westminster Foundation and the Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI) operatives hired to dilute, pervert and convert genuine civic society activism into illegal regime machinery aiding a puppet opposition in need of a lot of hand holding.
The selling out black sons and daughters of Bulawayo and Fr Nigel Francis Bernard Johnson had no clue of what Bulawayo Dialogue was doing and why and thus went head first with eyes closed into a pool of imperial deceit and re-colonization agenda in an apparent show of subversion of the initial idea as espoused in Point 13 (b) (i) of the Nkulumane Youth Empowerment Council manifesto of April 13, 1999.
Further the creation of the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association was a clumsy attempt of silencing the then Qhubekani Dube led Ibhetshu LikaZulu that had indeed made a reputation by talking and acting about real issues affecting the people of Matabeleland and when this nonsense failed the same black fellows at Bulawayo Agenda connived with their foreign pink handlers to entice Ibhetshu LikaZulu with funding- which funding I authoritatively state was turned down and from that day chaps at Bulawayo Agenda and BUPRA started labeling Ibhetshu LikaZuku and its members un-progressive and at all costs avoided inviting them to their talk shows.
It is not a lie that Bulawayo Agenda and its surrogate sister BUPRA have been so embarrassingly embedded in MDC-T politics to an extent that its cars, personnel, furniture her and money was being used to further the interests of MDC-T in the 2008 elections and 2011 congress preparations.
No sane person can deny that several MDC-T candidates for the 2008 general elections were trained and equipped with sabotage skills under a series of dubious Bulawayo Agenda programmes like the Local Government Capacity Building and Civil Society Leadership Development projects.
That the leadership of Bulawayo Agenda decided to fire Anastasia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube on charges of corruption and or mismanagement shows that the whole Board is so afraid of (name with held) the man who superintended the use and abuse of the organization's resources during his power seeking spree in the MDC-T.
The rot at Bulawayo Agenda reveals either of two basic facts. It is either since the departure of (name with held) the donors and Board lost interest in the project to the extent of not checking financial records timeously or (name with held) was crooked enough to keep convincing stakeholders that all was in order. If the latter be true then it proves that Bulawayo Agenda and its several sub-agendas in Gwanda, Nkayi, Gweru, Lupane and Matopo were never really about the people but (name with held)'s highway ladder.
If the former be true, it might perhaps serve as a proof that the donor community is getting fed-up on funding fly-by night regime change projects and redirecting their benevolence to the Inclusive Government. This is because the plunge into debt faced by Bulawayo Agenda coincides with the donor community's heavy expenditure on various Inclusive Government projects like COPAC, JOMIC, 100 days plan and several other strategic retreats.
Let this then be a lesson to other foreign funded organizations!
The grand conspiracy of all times may be that the several demonstrations and public meetings organized by Bulawayo Agenda and BPRA on the cost and maintenance of such services as electricity and telephone bills were a ploy by these institutions to draw attention away from the heavy debts they have on ZESA, Tel one etc.
To make it worse, the former Bulawayo Agenda Director and Life Patron of BPRA Gorden Moyo is the Minister in Charge of State Parastatals and Enterprises. Minister Moyo has made all the possible noises on Parastatal Management to the extent of developing what he termed 'Corporate Governance Framework'. Perhaps someone should remind Moyo that Corporate Governance does not work when such organizations as Bulawayo Agenda make such huge defaults to service providers.
Perhaps the gods have not been fair on Gorden Moyo. At a time when he had found a new toy in government, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office post, he was unceremoniously shifted to the Ministry his former organizations owe the most. He tried his luck in the mainstream MDC-T politics and earned all sorts of tags ranging from Mafikizolo to Inswelaboya. Now all what he spent his post-teaching life building is at the brink of falling down like a tone of stones beginning with the Agenda chapters scattered around Matabeleland as if he was preparing for the federal republic he so much yearns for.
Much ado about Gorden Moyo.
As the epitaph of Bulawayo's self anointed big brother of civil society gets written, the gnashing of teeth for other organizations that had chosen to mortgage their institutional sovereignty to Bulawayo Agenda bemoans. The possibility of crumbling and closure nears reality everyday and it pains to see the efforts of brilliant young-people and women of virtue die into thin air for the sole reason that Anastacia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube failed to manage the anaconda that had swallowed several snakes in town.
Several holders of Masters Degrees from all corners of the world face joblessness. Their wives and children of varying ages face the possibility of having to fasten their belts as their bread winners redo their curriculum vitae in search of new jobs that might perhaps re-introduce the financial Liberties they enjoyed before Anastacia Moyo and Titjabona Ncube were caught.
Faced by the risk of an accusation of mourning a patient in an intensive care unit, it is prudent to give Bulawayo Agenda benefit of the doubt. The process however of resuscitating that mountain of an organization cannot happen drama free. Someone will have to be fired, someone will have to be hired, something will have to be sold, and something will have to be bought. All in the Agenda corridors need to understand that ZESA, Knight Frank, TelOne, Rainbow Hotel and NSSA are not service donors but providers of commercial services and their dues cannot be cancelled because of demonstrations and public meetings.
As the trailblazing era of Bulawayo Agenda and BUPRA reaches its Waterloo, progressive residents of Bulawayo will have to form a new forum to air their views and such a forum much keep away from partisan politics. We wait to see the real explanation in the great Weekly Agenda, one of the most informative pamphlets in town.
Busani Ncube is a freelance journalist and activist based in Bulawayo.
He is contactable on ncube.busani@gmail.com.
Source - Busani Ncube
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