Opinion / Columnist
Cut Zimbabwe Cabinet to save money
27 Jan 2012 at 12:52hrs | Views
Innovation needed in using the little national cake.
If Zimbabwe is to rise from the economic crisis in a way that benefits the majority millions, then it will require injection of money into economic activities that generate employment and reduce waste in paying for bureaucracy and patronage. ZUPA, the association representing the interests of millions of unemployed Zimbabweans believes more than a billion dollars of savings could be achieved domestically by cutting the size of cabinet, commercialising state enterprises and reducing number of provinces and governors to the original five.
At the beginning of the year, ZUPA called for Zimbabweans in all sectors and especially in political leadership to embrace maturity, shun partisan politics and politicisation of everything in search for solutions. We cautioned that if the politicians try to score political points with ordinary Zimbabweans' life and death issues; this could affect our capacity as a country to find inclusive and sustainable solutions to the crisis.
It is therefore disappointing to note that the civil servants' demand for a living wage is increasingly being looked at from a partisan rather than national stand point.
As ZUPA, whose members are dependents of the few working Zimbabweans and whose interest is to keep Zimbabweans in jobs, we remain hopeful that national interest will take precedence in the civil servants issue. It is important for the Government to appreciate that most of the civil servants are employers in their own right and their crisis extends to those maids and aids that depend on them for jobs.
Civil servants are currently on half of what they need to survive legally. The response by Government in offering what civil servants representatives claim is an equivalent increase of $7 a month has raised a number of questions and for us, opportunities.
The Government is claiming that there is not enough money to pay the civil servants a living wage. In response, Majongwe, one of the teachers' union leaders asserted this meant driving civil servants like the police into corruption in a desperate attempt to survive.
Yet as ZUPA, we continue to offer our views to those in authority in pursuit of our mandate to create jobs for the estimated 90% of Zimbabweans looking for work.
First we received the news from Minister of Public Service Lucia Matibenga's revelation that it is not her job to attend to issues of civil servants but the Public Service Commission and the Cabinet in sitting. Then the Ministry of Finance repeated that Zimbabwe is short of money and cannot afford the $2 billion or needed per year.
If that be the case, we at ZUPA would want to believe Government by seeing their own efforts of reducing spending. This is critical in the face of growing national frustration after cabinet and parliamentarians awarded themselves hikes and allowances in the tune of $15,000 for the latter recently.
It is time for the Government to show the lead by tightening their belts too. This means foreign trip delegations have to be the bare minimum, allowances need to be revised down and most of all there is a need for honesty in revisiting the size of the cabinet.
Arguing that the civil servants saga was not her ministerial responsibility, Minister Matibenga has let the cat out of the bag by revealing that her job is only, "to make policy" and to solve public service issues. If this is true, then it is not the norm. In other countries, Ministers are responsible for their ministries and do an actual job. If Zimbabwean Government ministers' sole job is to make policy which will be handled by select committees and parliament and senate anyway before being implemented by civil servants, maybe we as a country in economic crisis do not need 66 of them.
Zimbabwe has a ballooning cabinet of 66 including the 19 or so deputy ministers and the presidium. There are 10 governors in a country of only 12 million people. They all have executive cars, earn hefty salaries and allowances, and have numerous pecks and security round the clock. They live on milk and honey and yet, if Matibenga is to be believed do very little when they go to office. Meanwhile millions are in need of food handouts, thousands of children are out of school because they cannot afford fees, thousands are being kicked out of their houses, have electricity and water supplies cut from their houses risking outbreak of diseases such as typhoid as is the case in Harare.
We in ZUPA believe that it is time for Zimbabwe to have an appropriate value for money sized cabinet. It would be feasible to reduce the number of ministries to thirteen (13) and governors to the original five (5) of Mashonaland, Manicaland, Midlands, Masvingo and Matabeleland, generating enough saving to pay civil servants a better wage and provide the much needed capital for start-ups.
We are willing to assist the cabinet office with ideas on how this can be done. There are no reasons why there are two ministries of education for example. We can not make ourselves a laughing stock as a country by having a minister for internet or a minister for computers at a time when state enterprises should be commercialised. We believe growth in Zimbabwe can only be achieved if government allows business to flourish.
We also think there are too many agencies or commissions doing the same thing.
Money could be saved by merging most of the "Quangos." There four or five whose job is to collect money or taxes for treasury. There is a case for having only one agency to collect all state revenue. Save money for education and poverty eradication.
We also believe the commercialisation of parastatals is noble as long as it will, save money, improve governance and guarantee citizens security of service.
Our efforts here are influenced by our views that more money should be made available for business and job creation and away from bureaucracy. Those who study business and entrepreneurship tell us that, the gold medal out of poverty is to resource small business start-up for the millions of the unemployed.
Zimbabwe is a country with potential to be one of the richest in the world in the event that resources are used to generate capacity for job creation, income generating projects and creation of wealth for all. The small cake can be used well to generate capacity for millions of ZUPA members and kick start the elusive economic growth.
We genuinely believe as ZUPA that substantial savings can be generated by restructuring the cabinet and state enterprises. This money should then be made available to unemployed Zimbabweans to start income generating projects.
It is clear that efforts to attract foreign direct investment are in vain in these times of global austerity and think money should be found domestically. We see the best way to engage the international community being through enhancing trade to create a market for Zimbabwe.
Let the cabinet restructure be a gesture of good will to the suffering masses. We need as a nation to take mature measures that can demonstrate to investors that we are committed to responsible spending and our priorities are right.
The following is our suggestion of how the cabinet could be resized to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year for our struggling state, so that we can have more to put into job creation for the masses.
1. Defence and National Disasters
2. Utilities, Supplies and State Security [energy, food security, transport & communications]
3. Communities [include Local Government, Diversity and Minority Rights (e.g. gender, youth, disability, aging, minorities)]
4. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Tourism
5. Business and Innovation [include technology, SME, industry and commerce]
6. Resources [water, mining, land]
7. Home and Legal Affairs [law and order, registry, and justice]
8. Education & Employment [education, training, employment and labour]
9. Health and Social Welfare
10. Treasury [finance, economic planning and investment]
11. Infrastructure and Development
12. Culture, Media & Sports [include monuments and national shrines]
13. Environment
---------------------
ZUPA is the Zimbabwe Unemployed People's Association (ZUPA) representing the interests of millions of unemployed Zimbabweans. It has representation in all provinces of Zimbabwe, with local communities choosing their own ward council leadership in a bottom up model of involving the communities in their own affairs.
For media enquiries or further information please contact us on email zupanational@gmail.com or call Zimbabwe numbers 0773026323 or 0773950193.
If Zimbabwe is to rise from the economic crisis in a way that benefits the majority millions, then it will require injection of money into economic activities that generate employment and reduce waste in paying for bureaucracy and patronage. ZUPA, the association representing the interests of millions of unemployed Zimbabweans believes more than a billion dollars of savings could be achieved domestically by cutting the size of cabinet, commercialising state enterprises and reducing number of provinces and governors to the original five.
At the beginning of the year, ZUPA called for Zimbabweans in all sectors and especially in political leadership to embrace maturity, shun partisan politics and politicisation of everything in search for solutions. We cautioned that if the politicians try to score political points with ordinary Zimbabweans' life and death issues; this could affect our capacity as a country to find inclusive and sustainable solutions to the crisis.
It is therefore disappointing to note that the civil servants' demand for a living wage is increasingly being looked at from a partisan rather than national stand point.
As ZUPA, whose members are dependents of the few working Zimbabweans and whose interest is to keep Zimbabweans in jobs, we remain hopeful that national interest will take precedence in the civil servants issue. It is important for the Government to appreciate that most of the civil servants are employers in their own right and their crisis extends to those maids and aids that depend on them for jobs.
Civil servants are currently on half of what they need to survive legally. The response by Government in offering what civil servants representatives claim is an equivalent increase of $7 a month has raised a number of questions and for us, opportunities.
The Government is claiming that there is not enough money to pay the civil servants a living wage. In response, Majongwe, one of the teachers' union leaders asserted this meant driving civil servants like the police into corruption in a desperate attempt to survive.
Yet as ZUPA, we continue to offer our views to those in authority in pursuit of our mandate to create jobs for the estimated 90% of Zimbabweans looking for work.
First we received the news from Minister of Public Service Lucia Matibenga's revelation that it is not her job to attend to issues of civil servants but the Public Service Commission and the Cabinet in sitting. Then the Ministry of Finance repeated that Zimbabwe is short of money and cannot afford the $2 billion or needed per year.
If that be the case, we at ZUPA would want to believe Government by seeing their own efforts of reducing spending. This is critical in the face of growing national frustration after cabinet and parliamentarians awarded themselves hikes and allowances in the tune of $15,000 for the latter recently.
It is time for the Government to show the lead by tightening their belts too. This means foreign trip delegations have to be the bare minimum, allowances need to be revised down and most of all there is a need for honesty in revisiting the size of the cabinet.
Arguing that the civil servants saga was not her ministerial responsibility, Minister Matibenga has let the cat out of the bag by revealing that her job is only, "to make policy" and to solve public service issues. If this is true, then it is not the norm. In other countries, Ministers are responsible for their ministries and do an actual job. If Zimbabwean Government ministers' sole job is to make policy which will be handled by select committees and parliament and senate anyway before being implemented by civil servants, maybe we as a country in economic crisis do not need 66 of them.
Zimbabwe has a ballooning cabinet of 66 including the 19 or so deputy ministers and the presidium. There are 10 governors in a country of only 12 million people. They all have executive cars, earn hefty salaries and allowances, and have numerous pecks and security round the clock. They live on milk and honey and yet, if Matibenga is to be believed do very little when they go to office. Meanwhile millions are in need of food handouts, thousands of children are out of school because they cannot afford fees, thousands are being kicked out of their houses, have electricity and water supplies cut from their houses risking outbreak of diseases such as typhoid as is the case in Harare.
We in ZUPA believe that it is time for Zimbabwe to have an appropriate value for money sized cabinet. It would be feasible to reduce the number of ministries to thirteen (13) and governors to the original five (5) of Mashonaland, Manicaland, Midlands, Masvingo and Matabeleland, generating enough saving to pay civil servants a better wage and provide the much needed capital for start-ups.
We are willing to assist the cabinet office with ideas on how this can be done. There are no reasons why there are two ministries of education for example. We can not make ourselves a laughing stock as a country by having a minister for internet or a minister for computers at a time when state enterprises should be commercialised. We believe growth in Zimbabwe can only be achieved if government allows business to flourish.
We also think there are too many agencies or commissions doing the same thing.
Money could be saved by merging most of the "Quangos." There four or five whose job is to collect money or taxes for treasury. There is a case for having only one agency to collect all state revenue. Save money for education and poverty eradication.
We also believe the commercialisation of parastatals is noble as long as it will, save money, improve governance and guarantee citizens security of service.
Our efforts here are influenced by our views that more money should be made available for business and job creation and away from bureaucracy. Those who study business and entrepreneurship tell us that, the gold medal out of poverty is to resource small business start-up for the millions of the unemployed.
Zimbabwe is a country with potential to be one of the richest in the world in the event that resources are used to generate capacity for job creation, income generating projects and creation of wealth for all. The small cake can be used well to generate capacity for millions of ZUPA members and kick start the elusive economic growth.
We genuinely believe as ZUPA that substantial savings can be generated by restructuring the cabinet and state enterprises. This money should then be made available to unemployed Zimbabweans to start income generating projects.
It is clear that efforts to attract foreign direct investment are in vain in these times of global austerity and think money should be found domestically. We see the best way to engage the international community being through enhancing trade to create a market for Zimbabwe.
Let the cabinet restructure be a gesture of good will to the suffering masses. We need as a nation to take mature measures that can demonstrate to investors that we are committed to responsible spending and our priorities are right.
The following is our suggestion of how the cabinet could be resized to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year for our struggling state, so that we can have more to put into job creation for the masses.
1. Defence and National Disasters
2. Utilities, Supplies and State Security [energy, food security, transport & communications]
3. Communities [include Local Government, Diversity and Minority Rights (e.g. gender, youth, disability, aging, minorities)]
4. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Tourism
5. Business and Innovation [include technology, SME, industry and commerce]
6. Resources [water, mining, land]
7. Home and Legal Affairs [law and order, registry, and justice]
8. Education & Employment [education, training, employment and labour]
9. Health and Social Welfare
10. Treasury [finance, economic planning and investment]
11. Infrastructure and Development
12. Culture, Media & Sports [include monuments and national shrines]
13. Environment
---------------------
ZUPA is the Zimbabwe Unemployed People's Association (ZUPA) representing the interests of millions of unemployed Zimbabweans. It has representation in all provinces of Zimbabwe, with local communities choosing their own ward council leadership in a bottom up model of involving the communities in their own affairs.
For media enquiries or further information please contact us on email zupanational@gmail.com or call Zimbabwe numbers 0773026323 or 0773950193.
Source - ZUPA President
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