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.