Why Zimbabwe’s parastatals are collapsing

It is interesting that China and many other countries in the Far East have maintained their SOE structures and in fact been able to build them up into highly competitive enterprises. The reason, a national policy of progression on merit – both in the States political leadership and at corporate level. A Chinese delegate to their embassy in Harare told me once that very few of the leaders in the Western nations could survive the very rigorous selection process that determined State leadership in China. You can see that in everything they do.

Such political leaders, themselves survivors of a very tough competitive climb to the top, do not tolerate mediocracy in their subordinates or the institutions they lead and control. Such values and norms are often not even found in our private sector organisations and companies. This process is reinforced by a near total intolerance for corruption or self-interest.

In Africa, by and large, such malpractices are not only tolerated, but they are also accepted as a ‘normal’ part of life. The spectacle of a manager driving a top of the range luxury vehicle out of the gate of a derelict state owned plant is not queried. We build a state of the art glass factory near a mountain of the raw material, see it opened by the State President, stop operating a week later and never reopened, and no one asks why? We watch 300 kilometres of electric cable stolen from the railway line between Gweru and Harare, costing over US$100 million, in broad daylight. No outcry, not a single person arrested and the case closed – millions of dollars’ worth of railway infrastructure destroyed and equipment rendered idle.

In addition to these fundamental failures of management and control, is the failure of policy. The ANC came to power in South Africa, like Zanu PF in Zimbabwe, accepted and took for granted the infrastructure they inherited from the previous Governments and put social and political needs first. Charges for services were manipulated, people allowed not to pay for what they consumed and fantastic organisations like Eskom, were eaten alive. Today they have a debt bigger than most States in Africa and very little to show for it. Installed capacity for 60 000 megawatts is performing at less than half its capacity. Their most recent power station came in at three times its budget and years late and only operated for days before failing.

The consequences of these failures of policy and management are immeasurable and impact on the daily lives of everyone. They exacerbate poverty and joblessness and are totally self-inflicted.

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