Opinion / Columnist
Mass Public Opinion Institute, Zim think-tank, produce ill-thought out report
01 Sep 2015 at 06:54hrs | Views
The quality of our political leaders on both sides of the political divide is something that many Zimbabweans now readily admit is a serious problem. Sadly this lamentable state of affairs is not confirmed to political parties but extends to other key institutions with disastrous consequences to the quality of public debate and policies. Take the Mass Public Opinion Institute (Mpoi), supposedly a local THINK-TANK but you would not think so to look at the disappoint quality of their recent report.
"Almost half of adult Zimbabweans felt the country was going in the wrong direction. Zimbabweans had a gloomy assessment of their present personal and country economic conditions (compared to that during the GNU)," said the Mpoi report.
The argument being the GNU had stabilised the economy as Zimbabwe ditched its worthless currency to adopt a multi-currency system, credited with wiping off runaway inflation and returning goods into the supermarkets.
Whilst it is true that the ditching of the Z$ played a very big part in reining in the runaway inflation and stabilizing the economy one would expect a think-thank organization to get the facts right and acknowledge that this important policy change was instituted by Zanu PF's Patrick Chinamasa in November 2008 before the GNU, formed in February 2009. But most important of all, one would expect a THINK-TANK organization to help the point the people think by pointing them in the right direction.
For the Mpoi report to come up with figures like "47 percent of the people interviewed believed that the country was going in the wrong direction, while 32 percent believed the country was on the right path," for example, without explaining explain that the GNU directions was not even the right direction makes the report a nonsense.
The Mpoi report should have pointed out that economic recovery of 3 to 4% during the GNU were well below the 10% plus expected growth. After a record breaking economic shrink of 84% in the six year period of 2002 to 2008 alone, the economy was certainly expected to bounce back with strong growth. This did not happen because MDC had failed to implement any of the political reforms required to ensure the next elections were free, fair and credible elections - the pre-condition required to restore investor and donor confidence and more significantly to guarantee the implementation of the far reaching economic reforms to end corruption and mismanagement.
Indeed it was MDC's failure to implement the democratic reforms which has allowed Mugabe to rig the 2013 elections and the very modest economic recovery made during the GNU have all been quickly lost.
The main thrust of the Mpoi report was that most Zimbabweans miss the GNU because "it had stabilized the economy". As a think-tank one would expect Mpoi educate most Zimbabweans so they realize that the GNU had failed to deliver during its life-time and that the foundations of the current national problems have their roots in the GNU.
No Geographic institution worthy being listed as a scientific institution would report that the earth is flat even if 99% of the people asked said so! Mpoi should not be described as a think-tank when there is no evidence those who compiled it report had thought about the subject matter.
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Wilbert Mukori can be contacted at zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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