Opinion / Columnist
Salarygate - Zimbabweans sold a dummy
28 Mar 2014 at 14:17hrs | Views
The public outrage over the so-called Salarygate scandal is very much normal and expected.
However, Zimbabweans have been sold a dummy regarding the REAL cause of this offending and outrageous scandal.
Most of the times people make the mistake of rushing to cure the symptoms of a disease instead of taking urgent measures to cure the disease itself.
Let me begin by stating that I have no brief for the men and women who are/were caught up in the Salarygate scandal.
Who, amongst any right-thinking persons, would refuse to be paid a hefty salary package at his/ her workplace, all things being equal? Given the same opportunity, most, if not all of us, would have gladly accepted the handsome salary packages and other juicy perks that go with the job.
That is the nature of all normal human beings. So, we shouldn't adopt a holier-than-thou attitude on this issue!
The root cause of the Salarygate scandal is the near dysfunctional and incorrigibly corrupt system of misgovernance in most, if not all, parastatals and other State-owned corporations.
The systems in these organizations have, over the years, been allowed to degenerate and rot beyond redemption.
That is the REAL cause of this so-called Salarygate scandal. In most government departments and parastatals, there are simply no checks and balances.
There is hardly any monitoring and evaluation. Management and workers have no clearly defined trajectory setting out what is supposed to be their input in order to achieve a certain output.
I was a deputy minister in the Ministry of Justice & Legal Affairs for more than three(3) years and I know exactly what I am talking about here.
During my tenure as a deputy minister, I toured several prison farms at Chikurubi, Bindura, Banket, Mazoe, Chinhoyi and Mt.Darwin. What I saw shocked me.
These farms are all located in prime farming zones and one would expect them to be profitably run and thus be able to easily provide sufficient food for the country's 47 prisons.
In fact, these farms, if profitably run , should make our prison and correctional services a viable business ; capable of producing agricultural and even horticultural produce for export.
In October 2012, I paid an official visit to Mexico and I toured a number of prisons.
I saw, first hand, how a prison farm can be operated as an industrial and commercial enterprise.
But, isn't it a total surprise that we read stories of severe food shortages in Zimbabwe's prisons yet the correctional services department has got no less than 24 commercial farms dotted around the country?
Zimbabwe is in urgent need of a major overhaul; starting from the very top.
The country's engine has virtually ceased. The engine is rotten. The piston and rings are finished. The crankshaft is finished. The smoke coming out of the Zimbabwean engine is toxic.
The whole engine has to be taken down and replaced. There is no other way out of this hell hole.
Let's not exhaust negative energy trying to cure the minor symptoms of the disease. Let's invoke positive energy and get on to cure the disease itself once and for all failing which all of us shall perish and die!
Source - Obert Gutu
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