LOSING presidential candidate and Alliance for the People’s
Agenda (APA) leader Nkosana Moyo (NM) says President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his
Cabinet have shown that they have no idea how to run the country. He told
Standard senior report Obey Manayiti (OM) last week that the socio-economic
problems facing the country would serve as a warning for people to vote wisely
in future. Below are excerpts.
OM: Zimbabwe is in a crisis at the moment. There is a
crackdown against opposition figures, their supporters and ordinary citizens.
What is your take on the situation prevailing in the country?
NM: To some extent the crisis is not new. it has been with
us since Zanu PF has been running this country. I think what we need to
interrogate a bit more is what has happened since the coup in November of 2017.
What was presented to the world at that point is a then a united Zimbabwe which
was given space to express itself as a population. There was incredible unity
demonstrated internally by all sectors of society, to demonstrate against what
has been going on, but we need now to take a pause and ask ourselves: So what
has happened since 12 months ago? At that time we saw the demonstration where
virtually there was no police around, but nobody, not one person reported
either an injury, violence or looting. Fast-forward to today, people go out
there and attempt to communicate with their government to say we are suffering
and we want to express ourselves as happened in November so that you can do
something about it, and the response that the population receives is brutality.
We need to pause and take stock of this. These are the same people who said
it’s a new dispensation.
Like I said, the crisis has been in the making for a long
time, way beyond the past 12 months, but what people were expecting is that
this last period since November 2017, in this new dispensation, people expected
something being done about this crisis and clearly nothing has been done.
OM: President Emmerson Mnangagwa came into power first in
November 2017 and then in September 2018 after being declared the winner of the
July 30 presidential poll by the Constitutional Court. Do you think he has the capacity?
Is he the right man for the job?
NM: On the basis of the evidence in front of us and in
front of the population, the answer must be no. I am not making a statement
about President Mnangagwa as a human being. I am making it as an assessment of
what you and I see on the street. Life has not improved, but not only that, the
more worrisome thing is that nothing is being done that makes sense. And
nothing that is being done has been done in a manner that seeks firstly to
mobilise the support of Zimbabweans so that they understand what the game plan
is. Things are being imposed on them whereas what we expected from a leadership
that understands how to make people tighten their belts is that you make them
see the plan and explain it. What we are seeing is an imposition of something
that has not been presented or debated to the people and what does that mean?
You cannot execute a turnaround plan and not explain to the people for them to
understand the nature of the plan and the time frames involved to withstand
this pain before things get better.
OM: Transitional Stabilisation Programme, a raft of
austerity measures being implemented by the government. Do you think this is
going to work? Is this the right prescription for our problems?
NM: Let’s say I am going to build a house and the
components of building a house include a foundation and a roof but you and I
would intuitively understand that the sequencing of this plan is important for
the project to be successful. That is not what is happening here. It’s not
enough to identify the components of what needs to be done, it is also
incredibly important to understand the sequencing in order for a successful
project to be executed.
Zimbabweans have suffered a deteriorating economy over the
past four decades. The outcomes of that as we know are that there is very high
unemployment level well above 80%. This means Zimbabweans have no means of
making a livelihood at any level that can be considered to be satisfactory. On
the one side you have a population whose purchasing power has been severely
undercut. On the other side you have an economy whose factories have closed
down because of the conditions in the country and we have said we want to
revive the economy, attract investment in the country. When you revive an
economy, the basis on which you make an investment in a particular geography is
based on a demand for the goods that you are going to sell. If there is no
demand you cannot invest and make money, you will invest and lose all your
money. If you are going to invest in an economy where the people already have a
diminished ability to buy, you need to make sure that you don’t make it worse
by increasing taxes. When Mthuli Ncube took over, we have seen them further
undermining Zimbabweans’ ability to buy. So it follows therefore that when an
investor looks at a business case for investing in Zimbabwe, the observation is
that there are no people who are going to buy, therefore, there is no need to
build a factory in Zimbabwe.
OM: So the government is taking a wrong path?
NM: They are not sequencing in the right order and what
that leads to logically is that you begin to doubt if they understands or
whether they are being honest in terms of their intentions. Mthuli Ncube is a
professor and he is not stupid, so the question has to be asked on why he is
doing this. Why is someone like Mthuli participating in something that is
irrational?
OM: What is your assessment of Mthuli Ncube as a Finance
minister so far?
NM: I don’t want to judge people on the basis of who they
are. I am saying to you let’s understand the evidence. I have explained that if
one needs to invest, they look at the capacity of people to buy. We have a
government which wants investors to come but they are starting off by depriving
this market of the ability to buy which means investors cannot come to
Zimbabwe.
OM: So the question remains, is he the right man for the
job?
NM: The evidence will seem to imply that both the President
and his Cabinet, broadly speaking, do not know what they are doing.
OM: What would you have done differently, suppose you had
the chance?
NM: What are the problems that have brought us to where we
are? I think answering that question requires us to go a little bit back. Close
to 40 years we have been fed that Zimbabwe has been destroyed by sanctions.
Firstly, the sanctions were put because we took over our farms but the manner
in which we did that, of killing people is the one that called for sanctions.
We need to understand that sanctions were applied to Zimbabwe but we need to
understand why they were applied. When you take an action you must assess how
other people are going to react. If you are not strong enough don’t do things
that are going to make you killed unless if you believe in martyrdom. A leader
has a right to decide on martyrdom on behalf of the whole population. So we
need to understand that President Mugabe’s methodology of implementing land
redistribution was not smartly thought-out and that is why sanctions were
applied.
Secondly, in my opinion what has destroyed Zimbabwe is not
sanctions even as I concede that sanctions by their nature are meant to hurt
but we need to understand they were applied in aptitude of our lack of
strategic thinking. More importantly this country has been destroyed by us as
Zimbabweans and not by sanctions and two elements in particular — corruption
which is at the top of this administration and assembling the best brains in
Cabinet. We don’t believe for whatever reason that we must assemble our best
team. We don’t have the best team yet we think we can still go to compete and
win, something is wrong in our thinking. That is what I call meritocracy, which
means you form a team that is based on the talent and experience available to
you but we seem to do the opposite.
OM: You spoke about sanctions not being the problem. This
comes at a time when there is a crusade campaigning against the sanctions.
Don’t you risk going against the grain on this one?
NM: I never said sanctions must not be removed. I said the
reason why this country is on its knees has nothing to do with the sanctions
primarily.
Secondly, a lot of the reasons which have been given for
the renewal of sanctions have got a lot to do with human rights. Why can’t we
remove that? It doesn’t need money. We want re-engagement with the world, we
want sanctions to be removed and we have been told the conditions like human
rights and freedom of association, but yet we still kill people on the streets.
OM: On the crackdown, what do you think about the picture
that we have portrayed to the outside world? Are people going to take Zimbabwe
seriously?
NM: The fact is we used an army to go and kill people and
this is a fact, therefore, the world has seen the reality. There are all sorts
of images circulating of people who have been shot and brutalised. This is fact
and that is what the investors have seen. If you are an investor and coming to
invest in a space like this, the likelihood of you investing in an environment
where the government does not respect its people is high. Again we are shooting
ourselves in the foot.
OM: And the idea of shutting down the internet, what is
your take on that?
NM: Everywhere in the world there are people who abuse the
internet. You have to find ways of regulating these things in a more acceptable
way in this day and age and not shutting it down. This country’s communication
infrastructure is very patchy and a number of people who were inconvenienced
are not the ones who were abusing the internet.
OM: President Mnangagwa has expressed willingness to work
with other stakeholders. Are you willing to work with him?
NM: Why does he want to do that? It is only in September
that was he inaugurated and he has a majority in Parliament. What exactly is
stopping him from running the country? We need to understand his agenda?
OM: Do you have a role to play in the country to ease the
situation in the country?
NM: No, again you are going against what democracy is. The
people chose a particular individual, party and a particular programme and
elections are supposed to come after every five years. When the five years
comes, hopefully the population will have experienced success or failure and
then act accordingly. When you say do you have a role, you are now mudding the
waters, you are confusing the process. The focus is to continuously hold them
to account on the basis of the promises they made. The debate now should be
President Mnangagwa you promised such and such things and why is that not
happening? Now he is denying that there is violence and yet people are dying.
People must go and ask him. There is a framework of how democracy works?
OM: Given everything that you have explained, what is the
possible way forward for Zimbabwe?
NM: Between now and 2023, people should continue expressing
their discomfort to the government of the day which they chose. As a citizen I
will tell you that the government is doing the wrong things. They have no clue
on what they are doing. On the engagement with the rest of the world, if you
promise that we are going to be different, the other countries will then ask
you to demonstrate the difference. The government now needs to be clear and
demonstrate that what they are saying and what they are doing is one thing. If
you say Zimbabwe is open for business but you haven’t dealt with corruption and
hiring competent people, there is violence everyday then the world will ask if
you are the new dispensation. Standard
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