A Photo Essay by Cont Mhlanga

Its Saturday 27th of October at about 11.30am. The picture you see is Bulawayo’s power station. During the good old days when the country was still able to bake bread for its citizens, before my fellow comrades led by the current good President introduced patronage planning that has shut down many manufacturing factories of the country, this power station was the shining skyline of the city that became its signature, ‘Kontuthuziyathunqa’ the city of the ever rising smoke.

All it did was generate electricity for the industries 24/7. Today as you can see from this picture it is no longer doing that. The Hwange and Kariba power stations are going the same way as they are now operating below capacity for many reasons if Zimbabweans do not stop telling lies and do something about the source of the nations challenges.

Bulawayo has since changed its signature to the City Of Kings even though there is no visible image the city over that suggests that Bulawayo is the only nation’s royal city, a city of Kings. It has so much colonial images that I find calling it the City of Kings stupid unless relevant images and public art to that effect is created as a matter of urgency.

These days it is better off named the City of Darkness! Or better still the City of Firewood. It cannot generate its own electricity shutting down its only power station to depend entirely on imported power from out of the city instead of developing ways of generating more power as a growing city.

It looks like the whole country plans to be importing all its power and all its basic commodities by 2015 with all its power generating stations having been shut down!

Meanwhile production is suffering. The majority of the population is suffering with no basic commodities. Just imagine if your company employs 200 workers. They arrive at work at 7.30am and turn on the machines. Power is cut at 8.30am and all production stops. All the work force starts to hang about playing all sorts of games killing time as they wait for the power to come back. At 4.00pm power returns and at 4.30pm the workforce must go home.

You decide on overtime, but then at 5.00pm water is gone till 9.00 am the following day.  Only one day in a five day working week will be spared from such power cuts. By the end of the week inflation has moved upwards. The Pula and the Rand has moved upward against the Zimdollar. Under pressure the prize commission sanctions the increase of some services and non existent basic commodities. The parallel market prizes shift upwards aggressively. Wages must go up too! Meanwhile there is no production. Have you ever seen a country where workers make a loss to go to work? That country is Zimbabwe. Your workers will be spending more money on transport to and from work more that what your company will afford to pay them.

I am not an economist but just a cultural worker. I how ever don’t need to go to Harvard business school to know that in this scenario production suffers, and this will lead to commodity shortages on the market, which will lead to prizes shooting up! Three things will flourish, the parallel market, inflation and poverty.

Many Zimbabweans are asking ‘where have we gone wrong?’ I will not attempt to answer this question but just say all industry is affected. One affected industry affects the next and eventually the country can’t manage to cook bread for its citizens. The majority of Zimbabweans last ate bread five months ago! Today Zimbabwe is the only country in Africa that cannot bake bread and has set a record in taking the longest time to solve the problem. The head of state describes the situation as not that bad and that people are blowing the country’s economic problems out of proportion. A head of State! In my culture it is considered disrespectful for a young person to say an elder is telling lies, so I will let it at that.

How ever the pictures below tell a different story. Children and women spending weekends fetching fire wood on the out skirts of the city as not all can afford to buy them. Even the old man must cycle home with firewood. Power cuts in the townships are interrupting life just as much as they interrupt production at the factories and at the farms. When you ask politicians what the hell is going on? They scream, illegal sanctions. When you ask the economists what the hell? They scream foreign currency shortages. Ask me and I will say its patronage planning that is the result of the politics of patronage.

What kind of planning is this were the country for 27 years develops new housing schemes and suburbs with ought planning for the increase of the generation of power and water sources. Expand townships, expand factories, expand farms, expand schools, hospitals expand everything except sources of supply of water and power plus the upgrade and service of infrastructure.

Haah People!

The country is full of technocrats who just implement projects because the political chefs say they should be done. If the chef says it should be done then it must be bone. If the chef says fast track it with no adequate planning and funding you just fast track it! The party chef said it must be done so it will be done. No planning. No other considerations. Nothing. If the political chef says build a dam on the Harare - Bulawayo highway to irrigate 20 000 hectors of maize on the Inyanga mountains, it must be done because the chef said it has to be done! If he says by the next election, then it must be done even if the election is 30 calendar days away! Haaa People! Its all about patronage planning promoted by the politics of patronage.

For example even if the British had decided for what ever reason that they will not pay for the land redistribution as promised earlier in what ever forum, that was no reason for government to roll out a violent unplanned land redistribution program at fast speed for that matter. It was also no reason for Zimbabweans to support an unplanned development land adventure just because we are all angry with some British politicians who will serve their terms in their countries and move on with their lives else were. We were supposed to plan it technically well and implement the good that we have done so badly at our own choice with care and diligence. Well I understand that we supported it for selfish reasons and not for national interest. Now the nation is stuck with thousands of people that have personally benefited from the land program but in turn cannot benefit the country! Its now one land audit after another to find out how the mess can be fixed, meanwhile the population starves and the whole economy is affected. Zimbabwe patronage planning is sinking the nation? This attitude of ‘we support it because the chef said it, after all we belong to the same political party or the chef pays my salary’ must change! Haaa People!

Lets put Zimbabwe first!

This culture of doing development business in Zimbabwe for the past seven years has given us amazing results. We are all shocked to silence by these results. We are now citizens of a failed state. Our country can’t even bake bread for our children! All kids born five months ago don’t know what bread looks like! All we can do now is tell lies to everyone and blame every one for our challenges except ourselves because we are veterans of the liberation struggle and we are heroes! We have for sure out done ourselves Zimbabwe.

Cont Mhlanga
Bulawayo
Tuesday, October 30, 2007