(I am sharing today’s post by Martin K. Moyo – {Mayor of Bulawayo 2013 to 2018}.
MK is a man whose wisdom I benefited from fully in our cohort in public duty.)
OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE MUST CHANGE.
I’ve listened to the debate in which someone argues that the Venda in Beit Bridge have no power because the six urban councillor are Shona. In comparison, he says that the fifteen rural district councillors are all Venda and therefore the latter have power to govern the affairs of their people in Beit Bridge rural. He still notes that there are two MPs and a senator who are all Venda. Yet, he concludes that all the Shona and Venda councillors, MPs and senator included, have no power to make meaningful decisions and for this weakness, he then blames what he calls “the Shona system of governance” which concentrates all the power in Harare. He then suggests that there’s need to change the system of governance.
I agree that there’s a need to change the system of governance. The Beit Bridge scenario can be used to illustrate where the weaknesses of the governance system lie. I want to steer away from the tribal debate because, in my view, people in whatever locality are victims of this governance system the same, be they in Manicaland or any of the Mashonaland provinces.
The way I see it, while, as some of us are apt to say, some people from Mashonaland are beneficiaries of ZANU-PF largesse, the people of Mashonaland as a whole are not benefitting from ZANU-PF rule. Some people in the Matabeleland provinces are benefiting from ZANUPF rule, but the people of Matabeleland are not. The beneficiaries of ZANU-PF rule are small coterie of an elitist kleptocracy.
The reason you find Shonas in cities far away from their homes is poverty. It is the same reason why Zimbabweans have become a problem in South Africa. They’re looking for any opportunities they can find to make a living. The party system in this country is such that it is not the electorate that chooses candidates. It is the respective parties. This is so in all political parties. People vote to merely endorse the party choice. Once elected, the MP or councillor does not answer to the people. He or she becomes a beneficiary of the system at the expense of his constituency. In any case, he could not have been MP had the party not allowed it. The chances for independents winning any seat are so slim that it is not worthwhile for most political aspirants. The other flaw of this system is that it compromises integrity and meritocracy as patronage, cronyism and pandering to the whims of the chefs rules the day.
The six Shona councillors in Beit Bridge have no power to determine fully matters pertaining to the governance of their area. Surely, they live in Beit Bridge and they also want the best for their town just like their Venda counterparts. These urban councillors are all ZANU-PF, like the fifteen rural councillors albeit the latter are all Venda. Instead of working for Beit Bridge, they’re doing ZANU-PF’S bidding in their localities. We must also appreciate that, while ZANU-PF has local structures, those local structures do not serve their localities. Rather they serve Shake Shake building in Harare.
What is skewed about our system of governance? ZANU-PF has concentrated power on itself rather than on the traditional institutions of governance. Let’s be clear that ZANU-PF as a political party is a private entity. Government is nationally elected and is therefore a public entity. The government, as distinct from ZANU-PF, has a mandate to rule derived from its election by the electorate. The electorate elects individuals and not the party. Of course, those individuals may belong to a political party but their mandate to rule is not confered upon them by the political party. If it were so, there would be no need for national elections. The appointment of government officials would be an internal affair within ZANU-PF. We would be ruled by those elected at the ZANU-PF Congress.
As a public entity, government should not be beholden to a private entity called ZANU-PF. Dr Joshua Nkomo in his book, The Story Of My Life, complains about Mugabe’s tendency of referring cabinet decisions to the ZANU-PF politbureau where those decisions were diluted, modified or even reversed. He said that that was illegal. I agree with him. The ZANU-PF Politibureau and ZANU-PF are both NOT national institutions. They’re private entities.
ZANU-PF has extended its tentacles to all the institutions of government and rules them with an iron grip. It has conflated the national government to a ZANU-PF toy. Ours is a classic case of state capture by a political party called ZANU-PF.
42 years of control of our public institutions by a private entity called ZANU-PF has weakened and corrupted them so much that they now cannot distinguish between what’s public and private, between government and ZANU-PF. The police, army, government ministries, public service commission, judiciary etc all think they’re ZANU-PF and bend backwards to appease the master. There’s hardly any modicum of separation of powers.
The 2013 Constitution encapsulates Devolution as the desired system of governance for this country with a view to cure this anomaly. As would be expected, the most vociferous opposition voice during the crafting of the same constitution was that of the then President Robert Mugabe with ZANU-PF shouting the chorus. The result was a compromise on devolution and not devolution in its entirety. What we have in the constitution are clauses that are not forthright, sincere and definite on devolution. The devolution provisions fall short of the people’s expectations.
Devolution presupposes strong legislative powers to the provinces. There must be elected governors of provinces, elected mayors of metropolitan provinces, elected chairpersons of rural councils. All these must have executive powers to run their provinces, local authorities and districts. They must be supported by elected legislators in provincial parliaments or councils. The governors must preside over a provincial government cabinet and must have the power to institute bureaucracies to run the day to day affairs of the administration and governance of the provinces.
To date, there has been little effort to implement the limited devolution provided for in the constitution. What we have is tokenism euphemised as devolution where the Minister for Local government doles out so called “devolution funds” as if devolution is money.
Devolution is not money. Devolution is power to govern at the local level by inhabitants of the specific locality.
To implement devolution, government should start by creating the devolved institutions as provided for by the constitution. Obviously, the first tasks toward that end is to enact supporting legislation. How are the provincial governors, metropolitan mayors, local government councils officials and rural district chairpersons to be elected? What powers should be confered on these officials? What mandates will these institutions be charged with? How will these provincial governments be resourced and funded? What will be their obligations to central government and vice versa?
Budgets to launch the new provincial governments should be put in place to make them functional. Once functionality is achieved, the provincial governments can then be weaned off central government dependence. They will be able to source their own revenues, craft provincial budgets and implement their projects independent of central government.
As we prepare for the 2023 harmonised elections, we must ask ourselves, almost 10 years after the 2013 constitution, why we’re not even talking about provincial government elections in line with the national aspirations for a devolved system of governance.
Perhaps we can take a leaf from Kenya. The 2007 Kenya elections were marred by horrific violence which attracted international intervention. The African Union sent a mediation team led by Kofi Annan to get the opposing parties to negotiate. The culmination of those negotiations was a government of national unity whose main task was to work out a new constitution for Kenya. By 2010, the new Constitution of Kenya was in place. But this was only a document which could not implement itself. They enacted an act of parliament called The Transition To Devolved Government Act. In line with this Act, a Transitional Authority charged with the implementation of the devolved institutions was put in place. The TA started its work in ernest soon after the promulgation of the 2010 Kenya Constitution and by 2013, all the devolved institutions were in place. By contrast, the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe is a mere document which government can refer to at its convenience. No one is charged with the responsibility of its implementation.
ZANU-PF is the biggest and only beneficiary of the current system of governance. As long as they remain in power, the chances of this nation’s system of governance transforming will remain a pipe dream. Everything must change. Change is therapeutic. Change heals. Change frees a people from the shackles of inferiority complexes ingrained in the national psyche by years of intimidation and brutality. Change opens and avails fresh opportunities to be exploited by the masses for their own betterment.
Ald MK Moyo
Bulawayo