Zimbabweans head to the polls on August 23. The president of FreeZim Congress, Joseph Busha (JB) is one of the candidates to run in Zimbabwe’s presidential elections. Business Times Deputy Editor, Phillimon Mhlanga (PM) caught up with him to discuss political and economic developments , among many other issues.
Below are excerpts of the interview:
PM: Zimbabwe will hold harmonised elections on August 23, what does your party stand for?
JB: Our party stands for peace and development. We believe that everybody has a right to basic things in life as a minimum. After we are elected into office, we promise the people that they will live in peace and that they will have jobs. When you have jobs, you have income security. When you have income security, you have retirement security.
The country has perennial problems including energy and currency issues. And these two things (energy and currency) cause the meltdown of the Zimbabwe economy. Another thing is that we are net importers. As a country, we should be self-sufficient.
We have the farms, we have land but we are not empowering people. In the villages, people are being moved away from their land to make room for Chinese and other businesses. As a party, we want to restore peace and make sure that Zimbabweans feel that they belong to Zimbabwe.
PM: Do you believe Zimbabwe is experiencing a crisis or is it merely experiencing a temporary volatility?
JB: No, it is a crisis. Volatility is when you move up and down. Right now we are not moving up and down. We only going one way, we going down. So, if you left Zimbabwe in 2008 and come back today, you find that you still don’t have money in the banks. People are struggling. There is high unemployment rate at more than 90%. There is not a single company that employs 10 000 people at the moment.
PM: If elected as Zimbabwe’s president, how do you intend to end the crisis?
JB: The first thing is that you need to be inclusive. You must show respect for Zimbabweans and ensure that our domestic policy is based on harmony and inclusivity. So, when people don’t feel they are part of the country and are not taking part in economic activities,they don’t have any sense of belonging. We therefore want to see a thriving economy centered on agriculture, the development of new industries, and the energy sector.
Zimbabwe has some of the most viable energy resources. Therefore, we should be exporters of energy.We should be able to produce batteries, export batteries. And through that we should be able to build vehicles for our people. We will also make sure that we have a good energy mix to ensure the viability of industries.
PM: Zim is experiencing currency challenges. Should the country pursue dollarization or support the Zim dollar?
JB : You can’t dollarize. You need to make sure your government is credible, free from corruption, and that your president won’t violate the Constitution.When a president can just issue a new Statutory Instrument there is no accountability. We have Members of Parliament getting US$40 000 loans. We don’t know what the terms of those loans are. We have judges giving US$400 000 in a country swimming in poverty.So, those things don’t give confidence and hence you see that we have a crisis . We have a crisis. Those people being given the loans if you look at the judges for example they don’t qualify for that type of loan. How are they going to repay it? What are the terms? Those types of things don’t give confidence or they disturb the macroeconomics of a country and the currency becomes a freefall because people are printing money or get money from the majority of Zimbabweans to give these legislators and judges.
PM: In your other life, you are a businessman.Is business sabotaging the government?
JB: There is collusion between religious leaders , business and government. In Zimbabwe, businesses have adopted a parasitic stance toward the populace.
That’s why sometimes prices are quite exorbitant. Certain things that you can buy in South Africa, here they are double the price.
It is generally a problem if government officials are leading in mismanagement and corruption.
So, business is basically colluding with the government because they see the government leading in looting and extracting whatever little that is there through illegal means.
PM: Zimbabweans vote on August 23, are you happy with the reforms done so far?
JB: What reforms? There are no reforms.I don’t think there are any reforms as we go towards elections.
If you want to campaign and there are certain places which are no go areas, there is no fairness.
Right now you cannot do anything in the central business district in Harare because we are not allowed by the law to conduct any political activities. So, there are no reforms. There has been abuse of the Constitution. The Constitution must be re-written after the elections. We need to re- engage and rewrite the Constitution.
PM: If you win the elections, what are the first three things you’d do?
JB: I will make sure that there is enough energy, that the industries start kicking again and that there is no favoritism.
We will remove nepotism and make it a punishable offence. The other thing is to go back to the domestic policy of human rights and property rights. We will also do rural economic development. We look at regions and make sure that we start creating jobs there so that people don’t flock into urban areas. Right now there is too much migration into towns putting too much pressure on infrastructure in towns and cities.
PM: What are the key points of your manifesto?
JB:The first is domestic policy, which promotes respect for both property rights and human rights.Land is the second problem. Our manifesto talks about how we will optimize land for the benefit of Zimbabweans . The topic of conservation is another important one. There is a lot of destruction of land .
Additionally, we want to also focus on key industries. We also want to focus on energy and agriculture as drivers of Zimbabwe. We want to move into rural based development and tourism. We also want to make sure that the knowledge economy contributes to the GDP. The other one is basically social services that is your health and education, among others. And the last part is our foreign policy . It has to earn a little money.
PM: You spoke more frequently about energy being a priority during the interview.Currently, ZERA has regulated almost 100 Independent Power Producers (IPPs),but the majority of them have had difficulty getting their projects off. What will be your policy on energy?
JB: Obviously, some of them (IPPs) want to hold on to the licenses and then sell them.My government will issue licences to those that have capacity. However, energy must also be affordable. So, government must play a big role because the delivery for that guides the country.
If you get IPPs where the government has no control, the pricing may be out of reach for many. So, I believe government must play a very critical role in that sector.
PM: As we approach this election, is there a chance that the opposition will form a coalition?
JB: The biggest challenge really is what are the values and the principles. Important question to consider is do we have a shared vision?
And I think that there is no shared vision, because if you look at the people in the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), they delivered nothing through that so-called POLAD. Instead they went in for cars and diplomatic passports. So, how do you work with people who want to feed themselves instead of feeding the people? So, its very difficult to work with such people.
So, what we want to do is identify people who respect the struggle of Zimbabwe. Each individual should stand a chance to achieve self actualization. We must say what are the things that we should achieve to make life meaningful. And we are going to partner with those people. We going to engage some of the war veterans because they are marginalized. We are going to work with the rural population because they are marginalized.We are going to give opportunities to the hopeless.
PM: Any other message to Zimbabweans?
JB: The big message to Zimbabweans is that you have suffered abuse for too long. The only way you are going to create a better future for your children, for the next generation , is that you vote for the alternative. And the alternative is FreeZim Congress.
You cannot continue with the same forever because there is no change. So, I think it’s time for Zimbabweans to vote for the alternative. They need to vote for people who are caring, who are responsive to the needs of the people.
As far as I am concerned people are suffering. There is a system where a victim remains a victim. We were victims in the colonial era and we are victims in what we call a new Zimbabwe. I reject the idea of a Second Republic, there is only one Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe that we have is just too painful, we don’t want it.
Those in the Diaspora, we are going to build a home for you.
We also need to create an environment where our children are not always at the passport office as a way of escaping the hardships of Zimbabwe.
We want to create an environment where Zimbabweans should go out to visit and to enjoy the fruit of their hard labour and not to go out and become slaves outside of Zimbabwe where people are being ill treated for being Zimbabweans. Most of them are now economic migrants and I just believe that we need to restore that dignity.
You have to come back home and be the best of what you can be in your own Zimbabwe.
