I was once in the recruiting of technicians. In walked one of
the interviewee, Max, smartly dressed from head to toe. He spoke with an
American accent and pronounced every word perfectly; my High School English
teacher, who wanted every word pronounced correctly, would have been impressed.
Max went the extra mile in answering the technical questions,
going into greater detail way above that required for his City Guiles
Technician qualification. However, when he was probed further, it was clear
that he read the stuff but never digested and understood it.
The interview panel of five, including myself, had to select
five out of the ten or so interviewed. Everyone else had ranked Max as the
best; he had failed to make it on my top five! Max was one of the five who not
only got the job but got the top job of supervising the other technicians.
Although there were supposed to be five technician teams only
four were producing a day’s work. Max took it upon himself to supervise the
others to the point of doing nothing else himself. He would complain about incompetent
staff, poor quality of the materials, tools, drawings, everything and how they
were affecting productivity, efficiency, etc., etc.
Max attended the progress meetings with the client and he
complained for us all!
To cut the long story short, Max went on holiday for two weeks
and productivity, efficiency and all those other things Max talked endlessly
about went up. When Max came back he was paid all his termination of contract
entitlements but was told he did not have to work.
Zimbabwe’s flamboyant Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli
Ncube, Cambridge University PhD graduate; always beaming with confidence and
enthusiasm; reminds of Max!
“The flamboyant Victorian British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli,
once noted that; “There can be economy, only where there is efficiency,” wrote
Minister Ncube in a recent article in Zimeye.
“Zimbabwe’s economy has been
full of inefficiencies for far too long. Waste in the economy, has led to want
amongst the people. Our people deserve better. And as the Minister of Finance,
I have a duty to set things right.
“The Government’s
Transitional Stabilisation Programme is at the heart of our reform programme.
It outlines the State Enterprise Reform initiative as one of the most important
areas to ensure sustainable economic growth and improved service delivery.”
Hold on Minister, hold on; before
you get carried away with all the technical jargon, we all know about your
Mathematical Finance PhD thesis, etc. Please explain to me in simple language
for I am a simple man:
1)
You said soon after your appointment as Minister of Finance that
you would attract investors and lenders galore. Where are they? You have just been
to see the Paris Club, IMF and WB asking them to provide the credit lines
Zimbabwe needs and they have all said no. Where is Zimbabwe’s economic recovery
going to come from without the much need cash injection from investors and
lenders?
2)
Your efforts to end Zimbabwe’s chaotic public finance has
impressed economist buffoons who just want to see the budget deficit reduced
and do not care how and who pays the bill. Your 2% tax on all electronic
transactions targeted the country’s 90% unemployed because they are not any
income. These are the ¾ of the population living on US$1.00 or less a day for
Pete’s sake and you are squeezing 2c out of the dollar they spend to earn their
meagre income! In 2016 Robert Mugabe admitted the country was being swindled
out of $15 billion in lost diamond revenue. We all know the wholesale looting
is still taking place because not even one swindler has ever been arrested. So you
are squeezing every cent out of the vendors but will not touch the swindlers
with the billions, mansions, fleet of cars, farms, etc., etc.? What a
hypocrite!
3)
You, as Minister of Finance, authorised the hiring of the Boeing
787-8 Dreamliner jet to fly Mnangagwa and his usual large party of hangers-on
to Russian and Switzerland last month. The jet costed US$74 000 per hour and
the trip was 10 day and the total bill was US$25 million. And yet back home
even major hospitals like Mpilo and Harare hospital have no medicine and junior
doctors are paid US$129 per month. Where is the financial common sense in that?
4)
Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems stem from the country
being ruled by corrupt and incompetent leaders who the nation has failed to
remove from office because they rigged elections. Mnangagwa rigged last July’s
elections you, Minister Mthuli Ncube, pretend not to know that the Zanu PF
regime you are working for is illegitimate because you do not want to know. Do
you really believe Zimbabwe can ever be a just, free and prosperous nation
whilst it remains a pariah state ruled by thugs?
Zimbabwe is in this political
and economic mess because for the last 38 years the country has been stuck with
leaders who believed they and they alone knew what is best for the country. Leaders
like Mugabe and Mnangagwa rigged elections to make sure they remain leaders
because, deep down, they believed they were God Almighty’s greatest gift to the
nation.
When it was clear that Max
was an incompetent technician hiding behind a flamboyant and over confident persona;
the company fired him. In Zimbabwe are well and truly stuck with a regime that
will never admit it has failed, even with a mountain of evidence of Zanu PF
blunders the regime will want to portray the image of one that has just receive
divine solution from God’s own lips!
The truth is that Mnangagwa,
Ncube and the rest of the Zanu PF thugs have no clue what they are doing – the country
would not be in this mess if they did. The tragedy, for the nation, is that as
long as the regime retains the dictatorial powers to rig elections, we are
stuck with the regime.
“By bringing efficiency back
to our economy, and in particular our failing parastatals, Zimbabwe will not
just walk again, we will fly!” concluded Minister Ncube. Yes, Mr
Know-It-All! Government has just been buying ZUPCO buses, for example, and the
regime will now sell the parastatal to Zanu PF chefs for a song!
Patrick, Professor Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, the 24 supposedly respectable members of the community recently appointed members of the President Advisory Council, etc. all know that Zanu PF rigged last year's elections. What is more, they have known all these years that Zanu PF has been rigging elections and using wanton violence to impose its rule on the nation with the tragic consequences we see today. They have all chosen to pretend that Zanu PF was the legitimately elected last July and the party has never cheated let alone commit treason.
ReplyDeleteTheir appointment has elevated them from just being an ordinary citizen into the exclusive ruling elite club.
Professor Ncube and the others listed above are not the first ones to see tyrants like Mnangagwa as great leaders because they were offered a seat on the gravy train there are many, many others who have fallen into the same trap. People like Professor Walter Kamba, the late Bernard Chidzero, Professor Jonathan Moyo, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, Zanu PF members themselves including Mugabe and Mnangagwa themselves; the list is endless.
Zimbabwe is well and truly stuck in this rut all these last 38 years because those who had the power and opportunity to set the nation on a democratic path failed to rest the temptation to seek their own selfish interest at the expense of the common good. Whilst there have been many opportunities to end the corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF rule, they have all been wasted because those who should have helped to make that happen have all failed to resist the honey trap.
The white supremacists have often said black Africans are incapable of self-government, Zimbabwe has become the basket case of an African failed state. And if I had to pick one thing that has made Zimbabweans incapable of self-government it has to be our failure to resist the temptation to use public office for selfish gratification at the expense of the common good.
We have condemned corruption only when we are in no position to end it; whenever the opportunity to end it has arisen when could not do it because it invariably came with the opportunity for us to be corrupt! The same is true of good governance. We have paid lip service to good governance, rule of law, etc. but have failed to uphold any these noble values because we have lack the intellectual fortitude to resist the folly of selfishness and greed.
People like Professor Ncube are helping to keep Zanu PF in power and for all their claim to intellectual ability. We are just going round and round in circles and it beggars belief how these people can continue to pretend they cannot see it!