Zimbabwe after Robert Mugabe: the more things change, the more they remain the same

By Rawlings Magede

Robert Mugabe has gone to meet his maker. While for now the tussle over his burial place has been put to rest after the family buried him in his rural home, it is now time to revert back to reality. There is no doubt that the tussle over Mugabe’s final resting place had diverted national attention. While on one hand, his former party ,ZANU PF has appeared to have lost that fight, there is no doubt that the final move by Mugabe’s family has further exposed the administration failure to even override Mugabe’s decision even in his death.

While Mugabe’s family and his loyalists continue to pontificate about his legacy, what remains factual is that during his reign, he ruled with an iron fist and cared less about his people. The Pan Africanist mantra can only be measured against his endless lectures at international platforms on the need to liberate Africa (Africa’s solutions, to African problems, whatever that means).I deliberately avoided writing an obituary on the life of Mugabe. What was quite interesting was the decision by Mugabe’s family to bury his remains in Zvimba at a time when President Emmerson Mnangagwa was out of the country. Its ramifications or controversies are discussions for another day.

The centre cannot hold!

There is no doubt that the government has failed dismally to rescue the country from an economic abyss. The confidence and expectation even of those in ZANU PF for Mnangagwa to initiate robust economic revival has fast faded. The once confident Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube, has retired to his cocoon and equally conceded that economic revival is no child’s play.Daily,citizens wake up to an over flow of price hikes and announcements by service providers. The recent one came from ZESA that announced an outrageous hike in the cost for electricity. Salaries and wages for low income earners have remained constant as businesses continue to hike prices for basic commodities daily. The hardest hit of course remains pensioners, who get paltry allocations from NSSA as pension benefits. In all this Hokus Pokus, the administration does not appear moved. If anything, the president continues to charter planes to unknown destinations which are devoid of any rescue packages for the ailing economy. While on social media platforms such as twitter, the government through the Ministry of Information continues to launch a public relations offensive to extinguish veld fires that have set the economy ablaze, their message has since expired as citizens have become Siamese twins with problems bedeviling the nation.

Last week, in a bid meant to cushion urban commuters ,the government yet again announced the opening up of the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) to commuter omnibus operators in a move that is “likely to improve convenience” for urban commuters. During a midterm budget review, Mthuli Ncube announced that government was paying 13million every month to subsidize the country’s public transport system through Zupco buses. While there is nothing wrong with reviving our public transport system, what should be worrisome is its sustainability in the long run. While today or tomorrow commuters can enjoy paying small fares, in the long run, it will have devastating consequencies.Even more worrisome is government’s capacity to generate enough revenue monthly to meet such costs given the serious hemorrhage in key sectors such as the extractive industries where millions of dollars continue to be siphoned on a daily basis. This brings me to the issue of cartels.

The rise of dark economies

While the ordinary citizens continues to suffer under the vice of mismanagement and corruption, there exist a secret society led by individuals connected to the current administration who run what Francis Fukuyama in his book, Political order and Political Decay calls shadow economies. These shadow economies are mostly found within the extractive industry. The main enforcers of these economies are gangs made up of violent gold panners. The orgy stories of machete wielding gold panners that continue to terrorize communities across the country are a representation of the existence of shadow economies .Their duty is to enforce and collect “tribute” in the form of raw minerals even from individuals who have mining claims. Of interest is while the taxman is busy chasing individuals and corporates, these shadow economies do not remit or pay any taxes due to political cronyism. The revenue lost through the operations of these shadow economies is quite substantial and has the capacity to revive the ailing economy.

In the final analysis, while the death of Mugabe might signal an end to his highly charged speeches, what remains factual is that his fall created an opportunity for other individuals to continue the plunder. For Zimbabwe, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Rawlings Magede is a Development Practitioner who writes here in his personal capacity. Feedback vamagede@gmail.com