Boy, we really need those elections

I have been living in Dar es Salaam for the past five weeks. What I see every day pains me. Within the 500-metre radius of where I work, there are at least five high-rise residential buildings of not less than 10-stories under construction.

As I walk to work, I have to cross Morogoro Road which is under construction. They are planning to build a rapid transport system along that road.

At the end of Morogoro Road, the Ports Authority is building a one-stop complex. Close by, there are several high-rise commercial and residential buildings under construction, some more than 20-storeys tall.

There is construction wherever I go. As I walk about there seems to be one building or another under construction every 100 metres or so.

Where I stay, at the end of Nyamwezi Street, just off the Karioko area, more new residential buildings, in what looks like previously a slum area, are going up.

I am not an economist but my gut feeling tells me that construction means development. People are investing, and property investment is long term investment. The more I walk around, the more I start cursing myself.

“Boy, we need elections at home. This marriage of convenience we have in Zimbabwe is really inconveniencing us. We need a government, a functioning government, not a government where everyone is pulling in his or her direction.”

Zimbabwe deserves to be better than it is today. It has the brains, the manpower, and the resources. Politics is killing our country.

I must admit that I was one of those who did not want any elections after the 2008 violence. Human lives are more important than who is in power. But I think the people have learnt their lesson. We really need elections to start moving.

Zimbabwe has vast human and natural resources to be where it is today. Right now, we are not showing that this is the country with the highest literacy rate on the continent. Literate to do what? To whine all the time about poverty, lack of this, lack of that, while some are quietly stealing our wealth.

Yes, stealing our wealth and getting away with it while we are busy squabbling among ourselves, about petty things that do not add any value to our lives or our well-being.

I am not saying people are not stealing from Tanzania. They are, but at least more is coming in than is going out.

According to the latest report on illicit flows from the African Development Bank and Global Financial Integrity Tanzania had a net inflow of US$31.6 billion between 1980 and 2009.

Zimbabwe had a net loss of US$11.8 billion during the same period. Ironically our Finance Minister always says the country needs US$10 billion to revamp the economy. Yes, we need that. But it must not be a loan. It should be our money that was siphoned out. We must get back that money.

We can never do that under the present set-up. There is too much pull-him/her-down. We need a government where people are pulling in the same direction.

The country has been travelling on auto-pilot long enough. Yes, it has been on auto-pilot for the past four years, though some people would want to take credit for the little progress made so far.

So let’s have elections and get on with the task of building our country. After all, we have already proved that, no one can destroy it. It is not that they didn’t try. They tried, but they failed. And now, the only way is up, but with a proper government, pulling in one direction.

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