One of the stories doing the rounds is that just before the price blitz President Robert Mugabe walked into a cabinet meeting, looked at his colleagues, and said: “Matumbu so! Muri kuwana mari kupi vakomana imi? Handidero ndichinetsana namaBritish muri imi murikuuraya nyika?”
Loosely translated what Mugabe said was: “So big tummies! Where are you getting money you guys? Am I not wasting time blaming the British when you are the ones destroying the country?”
Mugabe was referring to the fats cats in his cabinet most of whom are thriving while the economy is sliding at an unprecedented rate. The economic decline now in its eighth year had got so bad during the first half of this year that former United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell declared that Mugabe would not last until the end of this year. He would be pushed out by inflation which Dell predicted would reach 1.5 million percent by year end.
This must have been a wake up call for Mugabe. If, as the government media often says, Dell’s mission to Zimbabwe was to oust Mugabe, he did exactly the opposite. It was probably Dell who saved Mugabe because the Zimbabwean leader immediately clamped down on prices sending shockwaves among the business community.
Some close watchers say Dell was probably too optimistic. Mugabe would not have lasted until the end of this month if he had not put his foot down on prices. It was a tough and unpopular decision to make, but observers say things had gone haywire and Mugabe had to show that he was still in control.
Though supermarket shelves are now empty, the harsh action that Mugabe took, jailing business people and fining them more than $1 trillion, a quarter of the 2007 budget, sent a clear message. Behave or else! The business community has got the message. It may still be resisting some of the changes but it got the message. With the black empowerment axe hanging over their heads, most foreign-owned companies will behave.
Mugabe, however, must now look at his own backyard. There are too many fat cats in his cabinet and ruling party. For poorly paid officials most people are wondering how Mugabe’s colleagues acquired their vast business empires. Some are even asking whether there isn’t a conflict of interest between their government posts and their private businesses.
One judge remarked that if Mugabe was serious, he could charge almost every cabinet minister with contravening the Official Secrets Act. Each minister sits in cabinet to look for bargains and uses privileged information discussed in cabinet to hedge his or her own position.
It is common knowledge that almost all cabinet ministers have service stations and they have been selling fuel at blackmarket rates but not a single one was caught during the price blitz? Did they use privileged information to sell off their stocks before the clamp down? Obviously.
Another story doing the rounds is that one cabinet minister sold more than 200 cattle at about $40 million each before the clampdown on prices. The same minister is reported to have used part of the loot to buy cattle for $3 million each when the government slashed the price. He resold them for $12 million when the government reviewed the price.
It may just be a story. It might just be people’s imagination. But that is how things work in Zimbabwe at the moment. People are feeding on each other. Not just the heavyweights, but ordinary citizens as well. That is why government may be wasting time by slashing down prices because very few people, mostly speculators, are buying the products in bulk to resell.
For the price crackdown to work, either the government must source enough foreign currency to bring back industry on full stream so that it wipes out all shortages, or it must change the thinking of Zimbabweans. They are so used to making money from nothing that any half measures, especially when shortages persist, will only fuel the black market, enrich a few and promote corruption, which has become part of the Zimbabwean culture.
It is wishful thinking for anyone to suggest that they can get rid of corruption under the present circumstances. Heads will have to roll if Mugabe wants to get rid of corruption. For starters Mugabe has to wipe clean the Ministry of Home Affairs. He has to get rid of all senior police officers and stick to the Police Act that a commissioner should just serve four years and go.
He should now let registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede go. There is too much corruption in that office from when people want to obtain birth certificates, registration certificates and passports.
He can then move on to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. There are too many leakages. The same applies to the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe. It’s only politicians and senior officials of the company that are benefiting from the cheap fuel.
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