A Discussion Paper by Cont Mhlanga 

Lesson One

Fighting Poverty and Disease is Zimbabwe’s biggest challenge and agenda to date although the focus now is temporally on selfish interest political power positions. Fighting poverty and disease in our community of Matshiya ward is also the number one challenge for villagers. I have learnt the hard way my first lesson in rural development challenges in my work as a Councilor and an artist. I am aware that they are many people working in development in Africa and for Africa both within and out side the continent. I aim to share my lessons learned with them especially those that are targeting Southern Africa particularly Zimbabwe.

Learning the hard way- I mean as the only independent councilor and finding myself in a 28 member council chamber voting against a resolution that is doomed to fail from the start and loosing to a political party block and not to individual thoughts of councilors and then having to be party of that resolution and defending it when the villagers attack it as,‘ a stupid resolution by a stupid council’ That is hard! Now to my first lesson learned;

Part A of the First lesson learned

There is an urgent need within the district, wards and villages to depoliticize public service to the community by repackaging it and presenting it as normal customer service to the people through legal accountable service delivery structures.

Public service delivery is an embarrassing and disappointing mess in the Lupane district because of direct political interference from both ruling party structures and senior government politicians. It has become so unfocused and so uncontrollable that it no longer adds development value as machinery for fighting poverty and disease in rural communities of the district. In fact it is fueling poverty and disease while under developing communities and the population.

Our current crop of politicians and their political parties have become irrelevant in the fight against poverty, disease and the general up lifting of people’s lives. They have become dangerous viruses that chew up what ever effort and investment that is targeted to alleviate poverty and disease. Unlike all animals that produce useful manure from what they eat, our politicians and our political parties instead produce very deadly poisonous gases out of all the public resources and energy that they gobble in amazingly large quantities.

Their political discipline and attitude is highly questionable in the fight against poverty and disease within the district.

The issue of irresponsible uncontrolled direct political interference with public service delivery; in some cases with all service delivery has brought with it various problems and challenges in communities that have become escape goats for this deplorable action by our political leaders.

Part B of the First lesson learned

There is a pressing urgent need to give back to the villages their ‘Free Village Space’ that has been taken away by cunning and greedy selfish politicians and their political administrations in the name of liberating the people.

The concept of free village space in Africa is as old as the continent itself. It is an open space where every adult person of the village is free to come and participate in collective debates for the purposes of considering all matters affecting the interests and well-being of all the inhabitants of the village. This was a space and remains a space of free expression of individual views and opinions for public consideration by all present. In Ndebele society they are called Inkudla were a community agenda called Indaba is deliberated transparently by all present.

Resolutions taken and adopted at the village free space are binding to all. In present day Zimbabwe they are called Village Assemblies and are administered through the Traditional Leaders Act Chapter 29:17.

This space has been totally taken away and eliminated by politicians for the purposes of disempowering communities so that they cannot hold them accountable for their actions. Freedom of expression in the community which was the product of the village free space has been replaced by impositions, fear, hearsay and threats.  In fact there are no village assemblies sitting to conceder critical matters affecting the communities despite the fact that Zimbabwe is going through very challenging times.

This means that they are no minute resolutions from the people on how certain issues affecting their communities and lives should be dealt with.

The people have no voice nor opinion over how they are being assisted or even better still on how they should be assisted. Its as good as if there is a blanket ban on public participation in decision making in the fight against poverty and disease. Some one sitting some where in a high building in some city thinks that they know it all and they can solve it all for every one in all the villages.

The administration of the village free space is by law vested in trust in the Village Head who presides over the Village Assembly. The Traditional Leaders Act says that for each village they shall be an assembly known as the Village Assembly to be composed of all the inhabitants of the village concerned who are over the age of eighteen years. Its major function is to conceder all matters; to ensure good governance of the village; to elect and supervise the village development committee; to review and approve any village development plan; to consider and report on any matter that is referred to it, among its many functions.

I consider this an enabling act for total involvement and participation of the community in what happens within its community including the fight against poverty and disease. In fact I consider it illegal for any one not to involve the community while implementing community development projects in Zimbabwe’s rural areas. Yet it is not the case at the moment. Every one is tacking a lead from our irresponsible politicians in avoiding to be accountable to the village assemblies- the people. Government agencies and NGOs actually go an extra mile to invest in creating parallel expensive unaccountable to the people structures in an effort to avoid accountability in what they claim they do for the communities. It how ever translates to structures for under developing villages as the situation and facts on the ground speak volumes. Tons and tons of local and international resources being channeled to Africa, yet poverty and disease increases at alarming pace by the day.

The present scenario

I will conclude my first lesson learned by sharing with you the current scenario in our Matshiya ward. The five Village Heads in our ward have been totally disempowered and their village assembly authority is deliberately being undermined by their superiors in the district most of whom are bribed by unscrupulous politicians and individuals in government civil service structures for their selfish interests.

This is how the district it structured from bottom upwards-

1)- Family Units- these are child headed families, women headed families and men headed families. The ward has 815 families the majority of which are women headed.

2)- Village Units of 25 to 30 families headed by the Village Register- Usobhuku in Ndebele language meaning the Registrar. The ward has 36 Village Registers which translates to 36 Village Units in the ward.

3)- Then comes the Village which is headed by the Village Head – Usihlahla in the Ndebele language meaning ‘The Tree’. The ward has 5 village heads.These make the Ward headed by the Councilor as an elected person and the Headman appointed by the Chief.

4)- 28 wards make the District headed by the District Administrator a civil servant and the Senator an elected person. It has two parliamentary constituencies represented by elected members of parliament.

The corrupt

In this structure the corrupt have privately anointed Village Registers – ‘Osobhuku’ and call them Village Heads effectively dividing the village to various small village units that function in isolation from the rest of the village units. This way they remove or neutralize the lawful leader of the village so that the village is leaderless. They connect to each village register –Usobhuku as and when they wish and tell them that all village registers from within the same village are equal. They use them as political party agents despite the fact that the law requires them to be non partisan. This ensures that a lawful Village Assembly can never be called to sit and conceder matters of concern to the village which will legally bind any one. As a result the whole district becomes a free zone for corruption giving an opportunity for government and NGO employees to cook false district reports and send them to their superiors in Hwange, Bulawayo and Harare. Because critical decisions are made based on these reports, as a result the country is run and administered on falsehoods.

I conclude that for any meaning full rural growth to meet any millennium targets in any sector in Zimbabwe there is desperate urgency to empower and inform total people participation at village level. The structures and the frame work is there but the challenge is that the current government and its senior politicians enjoy and derive great pleasure and profits in disobeying the rule of law. It has become profitable for them to promote lawlessness in the governance of every square meter of Zimbabwe.

This political indiscipline and care free selfish attitude by public leaders must be stopped urgently and the only one to do it is the whole community working together with the support of every one who wishes to get directly to every village through the legal people accountable structures of the Village Assemblies. I am currently motivating the villagers to stand up and eliminate this political and public administration crap by our public leaders through holding empowerment workshop meetings and Folk Story Telling across the ward. I am understood better through our traditional folk stories in our villages and it’s a wonderful experience.

Very soon the people will govern in the true sense of the phrase. Only time will tell.

Cont Mhlanga
Matshiya Ward
Lupane
Tuesday, September 02, 2008

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