Where might we be if we did things Right

First of all, our international relations. This is a mixed bag, but very important as no nation is an island anymore. We have not behaved well since Independence in 1980, after a reasonable start we conducted the Gukurahundi campaign against ZAPU and committed genocide with thousands of causalities over 5 years and in the process crushing dissent. Then we systematically eliminated all opposition and became a one-party State under a strong man government.

Then the period from 2000 to 2008, when we virtually became a failed State, 70 per cent of our people on food aid, children no longer in school, shops empty and half a million people fleeing to other countries every year. This was associated with a form of domestic democratic civil war between the ruling Party and the opposition associated with Murambatsvina and the attempt to move urban refugees back into the rural areas. We destroyed our agricultural industry and by 2008 our currency was worthless.

South Africa took us by the neck and imposed a Government of National Unity and a brief 4 years of peace and stability prevailed. Then they took their eyes off the ball and in 2014 it was back to business as usual. Internal dissent in the ruling Party then led to the change of Government in 2017 and a halfhearted attempt by the new leadership to conform to international norms of governance. But the 2018 elections restored some legitimacy to the State and reforms were pursued with some success and progress.

Today our relations are still in a state of limbo, but what is of serious concern is that our relations with regional States – our neighbors, have deteriorated. Our leadership is still dominated by the old guard that brought us Independence in 1980 while many African States are coming under younger, new generation leadership. Many of these are very critical of the way we are doing things and are demanding that African leaders pay more attention to corruption and transparency and accountability. They see regimes like ours holding the continent back.

The spectacle of the ruling Party in Zimbabwe talking about violating the nations own Constitution, not holding elections on schedule in 2028, extending the life of our government by another two years and maybe even up to 2035, has sent shockwaves across the Continent. Tentative moves by Europe and the USA to recognise our government and open doors closed to us for much of the past 45 years are all shelved to wait and see what we will do. Our re-engagement initiative linked to trying to deal with our national debt, are all stalled despite the best efforts of our friends across the globe.

What about our economy and the national budget due on the 27^th of this month? I think I have persuaded nearly everyone that our economy is growing fast. Perhaps today we are among the fastest growing economies in the world. The recent review upped our formal sector from US$38 billion to US$50 billion but our informal economy, created by many decades of sanctions, bad government, corruption and survival techniques, is among the largest of any country in Africa. Many suggest it could be bigger than our formal sector and the evidence of that is everywhere.

Our national budget for 2025 is about US$7 billion – 18 per cent of our formal economy but substantially less than that when compared to our gross economy of perhaps US$100 billion a year. This means we simply cannot meet the basic needs of our people and virtually every sector you look at is in crisis. Education, health, water, waste management, transport, power, the list is endless.

But the story does not end there. New trends in the global economy mean that Zimbabwe has a mining industry expanding at 20 per cent per annum. This is not only driving the national GDP but also creating a surplus of foreign exchange for the first time in our history. But under invoicing of many of our exports is probably costing us between US$3 and US$4 billion. If this was corrected and our raw material exports, value added, we could probably double export receipts.

Then there is our burgeoning gold industry – up to 700 000 small scale miners producing perhaps 70 tonnes of gold a year, the Chinese with their equipment handling millions of tonnes of ore, another 50 tonnes and 600 formal sector mines producing 60 tonnes – that is 180 tonnes a year worth US$18 billion dollars. Just over US$2 billion finds its way into official markets here and most of the wealth created leaves the country. Last year Dubai gold markets handled 450 tonnes of gold from Africa “without certificates of origin”.

This explains why there are few signs of real poverty in rural areas and our massive informal sector operates on US dollars in cash without limit. It also explains how our import bill may be double what it is in the statistics, cross border smuggling is rampant. To add to that our diaspora is probably well over current estimates – at Independence we estimated that our population today would be 32 million – its half that and the difference can only be explained by our death rate doubling, life expectancy reducing and emigration. Our remittances from this huge diaspora must be well over US$6 billion a year, one transfer agency says they handled US$3 billion last year.

A close examination of our tax system and collections against these other realities shows that if the majority of “leakages” could be halted, tax revenues, without any changes, could be increased by 30 per cent. Perhaps even to US$10 billion. Recently I made a statement that corruption in all its forms may exceed the budget of US$7 billion. This was never challenged, and it may be even larger. When individuals with no visible business activity and few employees can make donations worth millions of dollars to the Party, to people of influence, build stadiums in Cities, buy football clubs, build mansions and drive cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, something is very wrong.

Today it is the daily experience of ordinary drivers being forced to pay bribes or fines at the behest of the police. You cannot get a decision out of government without paying bribes or “facilitation fees”. Tenders given out to specific individuals without any justification, evidence of bank transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars. We have become a kleptocracy and the cost to every Zimbabwean runs to thousands. We are a rich country made poor by corrupt government and its associates.

The individuals who benefit make no attempt to disguise their activities or to hide their wealth. Wives fly to Dubai for shopping; the airlines fly several hundred people every day to the Middle East and Europe. Well known family members spend millions on themselves and their friends. I remember the children of President Mugabe siting outside a shopping center in Bulawayo drinking expensive whisky in an open Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. A year later the nation celebrated the removal from power of their father. Did today’s leaders learn nothing from that event?

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