Beyond the #USD15billion and the #Bicyclegate: Perfect illusions

Introduction

Zimbabwe has in the past few days been seized with yet another big case of fraud and corruption making the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Mr Jonathan Moyo the case for newspaper and tabloids headlines.  The Minister is facing allegations of having misappropriated an estimated USD430 000, some of which the Minister claims  to have used to buy bicycles for traditional chiefs in Tsholotsho and some of it for fuel coupons for the Zimbabwe Youth. The money is alleged to have been siphoned from the Zimbabwe Development Fund’s (ZIMDEF) budget which was meant for tertiary education.

This is a second case of mega fraud deals making headlines in less than 6months and seizing Zimbabwe’s attention.  Earlier in the year was the issue of the President’s public statements that the government lost USD15billion dollars from shady mining activities, in the diamond fields of Chiadzwa. The issue angered Zimbabweans and saw the Movement for Democratic Change’s group led by Morgan Tsvangirai organizing demonstrations in Harare, Bulawayo, Chitungwiza, Gweru and Bindura.

Of the USD15billion and Minister Moyo’s #Bicyclegate

Fagio Marowa's petition on USD15billion

Earlier in the year, the President of Zimbabwe His Excellency Robert Mugabe announced on the state controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) that the country had lost USD15billion of potential revenue from shady mining activities in the Chiadzwa area. No public statement was issued by the government of Zimbabwe to explain how the leakages happened and what action they were going to take to address them. The Minister of Mines and Mining Development did not resign for poor oversight on the issue. Neither was the Minister relieved from his duties. On December 2015, the Reserve Bank governor Dr John Mangudya reported that Zimbabwe had lost at least USD500million through illicit financial flows in that year alone.

In response to the President’s USD15billion statement, in March 2016 one Fagio

Marowa

Fagio Marowa demonstrating at Parliament of Zimbabwe

took to a one-man demonstration and also submitted a petition to the Parliament of Zimbabwe, asking the August house to institute a Commission of Enquiry on the issue.  Later on in the year between May and June,  the opposition Movement for Democratic Change group led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai carried out street demonstrations on the same cause. They had demonstrations in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo and Bindura.

What I am yet to find out is from who the party was demanding the USD15billion. Whether it was the Chinese mining firms, or the government of Zimbabwe? Or the Minister in his capacity as the government officer responsible for oversight in the Ministry? I am yet to find answers to these questions. 

Back then, everyone was talking about the 15billion. From the streets of Harare, by commuter omnibus rank marshals, to commuters, to the vendors selling vegetables to the rural communities where men and women were questioning if the country was still that rich to make USD15billion. The hardships manifesting through lack of doctors and medicines in hospitals and clinics; inaccessibility of the foreign currency with most families living below USD1; the high numbers of children being sent back from school for failure to meet fees’ obligations and the poor turnover of vegetables and other groceries in growth points because teachers, nurses, police officers and other civil servants in those localities were paid way after usual pay dates, made most believe that the country cannot make such big amounts as  USD15billion. And easily lose it like that, without track.

But as time went on, most have forgotten about the USD15billion.

MDC-T USD15billion protests

Today, we are again seized by Minister Jonathan Moyo’s #bicyclegate. According to local newspapers, Minister Moyo and his deputy Dr Gandawa misappropriated USD430 000 through shelf companies Wisebone Trading and Fuzzy Technologies. Minister Moyo claimed that he used some of the money to buy bicycles as an empowerment initiative for the poor traditional leaders in Tsholotsho. One wonders how a bicycle would be empowering for our elderly leaders in our rural communities where our dusty roads are in bad shape that I see most people walking the bicycles for the greater part of their trips. I will not talk much about that, it is a conversation for another day. Following the publicisation of the allegations and that the Minister was being sought for arrest, Mr Moyo has taken to social media acknowledging the misappropriation, however accusing the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) of being tribal and targeting him ‘only’.

The ZACC claims to have investigated the fraud case by Minister Moyo, his Deputy Mr Godfrey Gandawa and others following a tip off on the graft case by a whistle blower.  According to the Zimbabwe Herald , Minister Moyo had 3 allegations being levelled against him, together with his deputy Dr Godfrey Gandawa, as follows:

·        USD95 800 siphoned out under pretext to purchase 10x3 dimension printers

·        USD19 030 used to purchase 173 gents bicycles from Ace Cycles, another USD7 260 for additional 62 gents and 4 ladies bicycles distributed to his constituency in Tsholotsho.

·        USD 24 000 applied for by Gandawa as loan on behalf of Minister Moyo.

The allegations are wider than this with more information having been published by the Sunday Mail of 9 October including the allegations of USD118 500 used to buy 100 000litres of fuel allegedly signed for by the Zimbabwe Youth Council (ZYC) among other issues.

I am sure soon, most of us will also easily forget about the #bicyclegate and its related graft issues. And we move on.

Perfect illusions

While Zimbabwe’s economy has continued on a protracted decline, university graduates wallowing in the streets, women dying of birth and health complications because there are no medicines and no doctors in our public hospitals and clinics to mention a few problems bedevilling our country, perfect  illusions have continuously been played out before us. The perfect illusions of the USD15billion, the #bicyclegate and many others. And as usual, our energies have been focused on those illusions. Perfect illusions. To divert our attention on the real policy and systems reforms we want to see across the socio-economic and political spectrum.

The illusions are well orchestrated that they become reality. And knowingly or unknowingly we are made pawns in a chess game used to play factional cards of political parties. Knowingly or unknowingly. They say experience is the best teacher. I wish we could borrow from the precedence of the impunity that has been enjoyed in our country on similar issues.  And acknowledge that these scandals are mere illusions, diversionary tactics, meant to divert our attention and the consistent call for reforms. Or maybe we are expecting daylight miracles to happen.

The illusions are so perfect that we are made to forget that there are women who are pregnant today who are on their death row because our government is so broke that it cannot afford pethidine, a drug used to perform caesarean operations. Yet the political elites continue to feast on the little the national coffers have.

The illusions are so perfect that we forgive our dear Ministers who fail their oversight duty. They are so perfect that we cannot see beyond the ‘why me alone’ claims by Minister Moyo. He implies that he is not the ‘only corrupt one’, and yet we spend time expecting the ‘other corrupt’ ones to jail one of theirs. Yes he may be jailed… and he will appeal. Perfect illusions.

Conclusion

These illusions have from time to time taken our eyes off the real ball. All the allegations of corruption which play out in our media, especially when led by the state controlled media are what Minister Moyo described during the proliferation of the former Vice President Mujuru’s fall as just ‘political banter’. And it is political banter. For surely how do you have accusations that are never followed up with arrests? Or when the arrests happen, soon they are appealed and the accused go scot free.

The real ball remains the fact that all this blatant thievery by senior government officials is testimony to the need for genuine reforms we require to run a properly structured developmental state. And mind you, it is not just about political or electoral reforms. It cascades down to even economic reforms, ethics and sound corporate governance. Above all, it is about a leadership that is accountable to its citizens.

Public Policies meant to create Public Problems

Public policies and the processes that see them come into being in my beloved country Zimbabwe are quite interesting. The policies that we have, make one wonder whether our policy makers really engage in a diligent process to think through, analyse and then come up with a policy which they deem feasible and responsive to our countries’ needs. Perhaps if they do engage in a thought process, they are not in touch with our day-to-day realities that the policies they prescribe, yes, work in their minds but not in our circumstances.

Some policy measures recently introduced in our motherland bear convincing evidence that those charged with governance have lost connection with the general populace they claim to serve. Policy makers continue to prescribe policies, aimed at addressing symptomatic factors, without a proper analysis of the root problems and expect to see an improved situation in the country. In this article, I will look at only two of the many policies that have are a creation aimed at creating public problems instead of addressing them.

Most of us are by now familiar with Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 (SI64/2016) which was introduced and gazetted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce on June 17 in a bid to control importation of goods. In his explanation, quoted in the Herald (22 June), Minister Bimha said that his Ministry was not banning importation of listed goods but removing the goods from the Open General Import License (OGIL), and that whoever wants to import should be issued with an import license on condition that they are able to provide a satisfactory explanation on why the goods are needed in the country.

Tracing back the history of informal cross-border trade, I remember how when I went to primary school in the early 1990s, our mothers were part of cross-border traders, who made woolen doilies which they exported to Johannesburg in South Africa, Angola and other countries. As time went on, we also started importing second hand clothes, which were popularly known as ‘mazitye’ by then. The exportation and importation of these products saw the women being able to send their children to school and contributed towards other general household financial needs. Some families were able to build houses and really led decent urban lives.

Fast-forward in 2007, 8 and 9, small-scale importation and exportation grew into large business which largely contributed towards sustaining the Zimbabwean economy, at a time when the economy would have turned completely dysfunctional in the hyperinflationary environment. This to me, shows the role and importance of the small-scale cross-border trade as part of the informal economy.

Going through SI64/2016, I am forced to question the sincerity of the restrictive and rather discriminatory nature of the importation policy which requires an ‘import licence’, which is granted on condition that the presiding officers are satisfied by the ‘justification’ given. That to me, is problematic in two ways.

• To start with, the process of getting the licence is subjective as the Ministry did not even provide the standards of what constitutes a ‘satisfactory explanation’
• Secondly, this does not very much contribute to addressing the cash-crisis bedevilling the struggling economy but rather escalate it. I say so because the women and other individual small-scale traders are in the business to just be able to provide for their families and consume their little income locally, either by paying school fees, paying rentals and other general aspects of day to day living.These traders to me, are likely to suffer to get the import licences, and even if they do, I do not see their ability to externalise a lot of money and bank outside the country.

However, the big retail outlets like Choppies, Pick’n’Pay just to mention a few, have a high propensity to get the licenses. Yet, to me, these are the traders who have a huge appetite to bank outside the country, for many obvious reasons, one being that they do not trust the policies which they and their other government counterparts make.

The SI, therefore poses a huge public problem in which the much needed foreign currency will continue to escape our borders, and when economic opportunistic factors set in, it is the women, other small traders and the ordinary people, who bear the problematic consequences of the poor policies. The Beitbridge protests are already an example of how problematic these policies are. The complexities and pain for me in such situations is that it is the women and girls who suffer the most, as violent situations create another layer of violence, against women and girls.  

My next policy of interest is Statutory Instrument 41 of 2016, of the Road Traffic (Signs and Signals) Regulations which according to the Herald (30 June) were gazetted in April. The SI provides for USD200.00 fines or imprisonment to offenders such as motorists and commuter omnibus operators who pick and drop people at unauthorised points. While this may sound quite a punitive measure, it is very problematic to me in the following ways:

• The social, economic and technical feasibility of the policy is questionable. It has high chances of causing or rather reinforcing a public problem than solving any. Socially, our country has become notorious for corruption, ranking 150 out of 175 countries, according to the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International.  Our police, who are the ones responsible for enforcing this law, have not been spared from corrupt activities and under the current fiscal position, are not paid according to normal pay dates. Also, these motorists and commuter omnibus operators have gradually adopted the aggressive ‘mshika-shika’ approach as a tactic for survival under the current economic challenges.  As such a combination of these factors to me produce a high motivation for the both the offenders and law enforcers to settle for a bribe than comply with the law as the fine is reasonably ‘beyond reach’. Furthermore, in some of the so called undesignated places there are no clear road signs to warn drivers not to use such areas for pick-ups and drop offs.

I am concerned that with more and more of these policies, and others that are already not working in a positive way, especially those regulating the commuter omnibuses, the public will continue to be exposed to more problems. Already, as a woman I find the implementation of the current policies more problematic and dangerous to fellow sisters and brothers who sell their wares in the streets, the Girls High pupil’s fatal accident, the Mbudzi incident in which a fellow sister lost a life and her baby’s life after an altercation with a commuter omnibus conductor is a testimony of how problematic and dangerous the current policy regime is to women and girls.

We need public policies yes, but our policy makers need to be serious and sincere about the policies they formulate and how they formulate them. One is forced to think that currently they nicodemously formulate the policies by themselves, during the night and force them into implementation at the expense of citizens’ voice while also worsening the situation of women and the poor. One of our constitutional right as citizens of Zimbabwe is to contribute and inform our policies, but it seems the policy consultation door is not open. However to our dear policy makers, be reminded that if you are no longer in touch with our daily lives at Copa Cabana, 4^th Street, Market Square, our lives in the high density suburbs, our lives in the highways of this country, in the rural and remote communities, including the resettlement areas where we have relocated to, we are always keen to be consulted before we wake up to the headlines of policies that create more problems for us than solve our already burdensome ones.