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Populist intervention
Comment, Financial Gazette
February 3, 2005

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2005/February/February3/7694.shtml

SERVICE delivery in almost all the country’s local authorities without exception is, for want of a better expression, on the brink of collapse. Prospects for a quick turnaround under the current circumstances are rather grim to say the very least.

This could be aggravated following weekend reports that the Ministry of Local Government and National Housing, headed by Dr Ignatius Chombo, has once again shot down proposed rate hikes by local authorities. It is imperative to point out right on the outset that the situation in the municipalities has been allowed to deteriorate over the years as the powers-that-be ignored graft, cronyism and the influence of reality and instead opted for populist decisions for political capital. All this because all the responsible minister sees around him is the fierce struggle of politics — mostly imagined, at that!

A case in point is the government directive that local authorities should not increase rates by more than 70 percent this year, ostensibly to cushion the long-suffering ratepayers. That the people, feeling the pinch in the face of an unprecedented economic meltdown, need cushioning is beyond argument. While the minister might not have said exactly that — a lot is said by the unsaid in politics. In any case that could be the only plausible reason why government would give the proposed, and in most cases reasonable, rate hikes the thumbs down.

But from our past experience with Zimbabwean government ministers, the concern for ratepayers could be nothing more than window-dressing for the public’s benefit. It is a falsity and it seems more false than the ministry’s insincerity, so to speak. The latest move is a threadbare politically-motivated uncalled for and short-sighted populist intervention because Zimbabweans can endure even suffocating belt-tightening for the long-term good as long as there is accountability on the part of the authorities. Put simply, Chombo’s directive is a vote-buying gimmick whatever the authorities may call it. Just as well Zimbabweans have learnt not to confuse real life with politics otherwise they could end up believing the things that some of these ministers say.

This is not the first time we have taken issue with government’s predilection, through Minister Chombo, to be involved in the day-to-day running of local authorities especially in the face of the long-drawn acrimonious wrangling with Movement for Democratic Change-dominated councils over key issues. And we are afraid, at this rate, Minister Chombo is fast joining the ranks of his Cabinet colleagues whose word no man relies on anymore. These include Dr Joseph Made of Agriculture, Dr Simbarashe Mumbengegwi of Industry and International Trade and of course Aeneas Chigwedere whose handling of educational matters connotes the strange behaviour of the guy in the science fiction movie who is the first to see the "creature".

Because of their bungling, these ministers are part of a coterie of politicians who, when they take a position on anything, Zimbabweans automatically take the opposite one and know they are right! In any case, the people always know where they are with these ministers because they have always let the nation down.

Admittedly, as alluded to earlier, there has been widespread corruption, management ineptitude and inefficiency which have worsened the crises in most of these local authorities. And this we do not condone, which is why we have, time without number, called upon government to deal decisively with corruption in other areas of public life which have remained largely opaque and unfriendly to scrutiny.

But whatever his motivations, we are at a loss as to what really prompted this decision by Minister Chombo. We ask again as we did in our editorial of July 8 2004: Did government, which for political considerations, is wary of upward price movements, ever consider the requirements of the respective local authorities for them to be able to restore their fast collapsing service delivery postponing the inevitable? Would these budgets not have to be revised upwards before anybody could say election after the Parliamentary poll in March? Shouldn’t the Ministry of Local Government have looked at each case on its own merit? Will Zimbabwe ever have Cabinet ministers who have ideas above scheming for political survival? Lastly but not least, when is government going to learn that the one-size-fits-all approach does not work?

We ask these questions because they are pertinent. While it might seem politically convenient now as it could capture the all-elusive urban voter into the jam-jar for ZANU PF, the move to revise downwards the proposed rate increases is as sure as hell, an unrealistic and wrong-headed stance which shows that government did not learn anything from the fuel-pricing debacle a few years ago.

Somewhere down the line, the government will have to bite the bullet and allow local authorities to charge economic rates whose cumulative shock the people might not be able to absorb due to their magnitude! And that, we dare say, could be sooner rather than later. In fact government could learn a lot from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s pragmatic approach which has seen the central bank setting up the Parastatal and Local Authorities Reorientation Programme which also covers municipalities and will eventually see them being weaned from the life support system provided by the fiscus in the not-too-distant future.

Given the foregoing, we are left wondering whether the government would not see the justice of it all when we say that some narrow-minded and obstinate government ministers have been so hackneyed in populist politics and so lost to all sense of pragmatism — which in essence has become the hallmark of Zimbabwean politics? How sad!

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