If it’s broken, fix it!
Stembile Mpofu
A lesson learnt from the field of conflict transformation is that when a conflict occurs it means there is something that needs to be fixed. This lesson is transformative because it allows those in a conflict situation to see it as an opportunity rather than seeing it as catastrophic or as the end of a relationship. Seeing the opportunity in what seems like a disastrous situation provides an opportunity for one to transform their situation into something positive. It also allows those involved in a conflict situation to step back and assume a more objective attitude to their situation and minimise personalising the issue.
Another lesson is that more often than not, conflicts erupt after a situation has been deteriorating over a period of time. The issues have lain dormant and have not been addressed. Oftentimes the eruption is messy, unstructured and likely to be painful for those who are involved. The job of a mediator or facilitator if one is called in, is to allow space for everyone involved to vent and say all the things they need to say, while providing a structured space for all the “noise” to happen. The “noise” from venting is important because it provides clues to the things that need to be fixed. Once the areas that need fixing are identified then all involved can put their energy into creating a new environment, structure or craft different ways of relating to each other. These new ideas will deal with the issues that had given rise to the state of conflict and had remained latent until the eruption. Over the last few months Zimbabwe’s economic environment has felt like a conflict zone of sorts. Many latent issues have erupted and caused a great deal of angst amongst the citizens.
The drop in the unofficial Bond note rate has caused the prices of most commodities to double or triple.
It has also led to many businesses pegging their prices in US dollars because they prefer the greenback over bond notes like the medical doctors have declared or they say their suppliers need their money in US dollars. The RBZ has been failing to allocate much needed forex to industries that need forex to pay their external suppliers. We have seen fuel shortages and shortages of basic commodities like cooking oil and sugar. To add to the chaos we have seen letters from forex earning entities like Rio Tinto Zimbabwe threatening to sue Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank for failing to pay the company their forex earnings.
All these events are symptomatic of economic and political issues that have remained unresolved over many years. At the top of the list is the issue of corruption. Yes, within state institutions but also within the private sector and civil society.
Corruption is endemic in every sector of Zimbabwean society we all need to own up to it, those within government and those outside of it. It is not only corruption within state institutions that has a negative impact on the economy of the country, private sector and civil society corruption impacts negatively too.
It is important that as these corruption issues emerge each sector notes the manner in which their counterparts within their sector are indulging in corrupt activities and devise ways to censure each other.
Political will has not been present to deal with the many economic elephants in the room. Zimbabwe’s currency “died” with the introduction of the multi currency regime in 2009. The country began to use the US dollar as part of a basket of currencies. The introduction of the multi currency regime brought temporary relief after the economic collapse of 2008. It also however, made it easier for business people to siphon funds out of the country. Not just Chinese businesses as we regularly tell each other, but Zimbabwean businesses too. Government actors despite being aware of the huge sums of money being taken out of the country, did not do much to curb these activities because corrupt political actors and officials with access to state funds were taking advantage of the same loopholes to siphon funds out of the country. This led to the disappearance of the US dollar as a means of exchange and the introduction of the bond note.Both the multi currency regime and the bond note are temporary solutions to the Zimbabwe’s currency issues.
They cannot provide long-term stability because both constitute a Band-Aid remedy to Zimbabwe’s economic woes. This is because beneath it all is the issue of government spending spurred by various factors that need to be addressed urgently. Addressing them is going to lead to more messy eruptions and a great deal more pain.
First of all the government is in external and internal debt which must be serviced before we can expect government expenditure on developmental projects. The civil service will need to be restructured meaning loss of employment for many. Parastatals that have been a drain on the fiscus will be sold off to cut down government spending. The fact that there are US sanctions that have been placed on the country cannot be overemphasised as an issue militating against economic recovery. It is important to note and accept that over the next few years we shall be experiencing various eruptions and these will not be easy to deal with.
We can choose to deal with the occurrence of these eruptions in different ways. We can choose to see them as catastrophic, where we close our businesses in protest, we can see the situation as a chance to make greater profits for our business and overcharge for goods and services or we can choose to hold our heads in despair, complain about the situation and conclude that Zimbabwe is cursed. These responses are what have characterised the reaction to the events that have taken place over the last few months.
They have made the situation worse at both national and personal levels as the national psyche is affected adversely by negativity. The net effect is an absence of constructive ideas and a debilitating sense of powerlessness that puts the whole country at a disadvantage. We can however choose to respond to the situation differently.
First is an acceptance that years of political and economic mismanagement of the country have resulted in the system being broken.
What we are seeing through various exposés of corruption and the collapse of the bond note rate are not new things, they have been there all the time. All that has happened is that the information has been put in the public domain and is now part of public discourse. The fact that you could not use Visa Cards outside Zimbabwe meant that the money being earned was not US dollars. There were always questions about Zimbabwe’s fuel supply and the pricing. What has happened is that we now know what the arrangement around fuel has been and are now aware of what was wrong with the arrangement. As more eruptions occur we are becoming aware of all that is broken within the system. The clues for all that is broken are in the noise and we must resolve to begin to fix things. For the first time in many years government is acknowledging the importance of the business sector. What is the business sector doing to harness this newfound power? Have the various business groupings sat down to analyse what has not been working? Not by sitting down to craft press statements and public notices but by organising and lobbying government on specific issues. The government mantra has been the need to increase production in order to generate more revenue for the country. What has the business community done to use this to push the business agenda?
In anticipation of the public service restructuring what have the various Unions done to engage government on the welfare of those who shall lose their employment? It will be important to begin to engage with the commission before the restructuring process is fully implemented. Our government has borrowed to the extent that its debt has proved impossible to service through normal channels. What is on the legislative agenda of parliament to ensure that this cannot happen again? As opposed to complaining about the extent of the debt what is civil society doing to ensure we do not find ourselves in this same situation again in another ten years. The checks and balances and moral rehabilitation needed to curb the corruption scourge need to be implemented in every single sector. Let each sector start by putting in place systems to curb corruption in their own space. For a short while let each sector get off their moral high horses where government is blamed for all the ills and take responsibility for their part in the drama. The transformation Zimbabwe needs requires everyone to play their part, not through complaints but through constructive action. Change is not the responsibility of any one player
