ZANU-PF should stop playing Mother Theresa

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front was elected in July mainly for two major reasons: to consolidate land reform and to empower the people through indigenisation.

People voted for the party because they wanted to be empowered but definitely not for the government to do things for them.

The government- or ZANU-PF (there is no difference between the two at the moment) should therefore stop playing Mother Theresa because:

1. It does not have the money
2. This is un-African
3. It even offends God, our Creator; and, worst of all
4. It does not promote development.

People voted for ZANU-PF to create opportunities for them, to ensure the right climate, to provide the proper infrastructure, but not to do things for them. They can do things for themselves and those that cannot should ship out. It is as simple as that.

If ZANU-PF is genuinely fighting to empower its people, it should stop meddling and pretending that it has money and can do things for the people.

It does not have the money. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa had to postpone the announcement of the 2014 budget this month as is the norm. And, even if the government had the money, that would destroy the whole concept of empowerment. Empowerment means allowing people to do things for themselves.

Indeed, the government has to create the right atmosphere. It can introduce subsidies. But it must desist from giving people free handouts. This is retrogressive. It promotes laziness. It provides opportunities for corruption because officials can siphon so-called donations.

The biggest problem, however, is that it creates dependence and not independence and has to be repeated year after year. It does not, therefore, create development, which the country badly needs. Besides, there is no reason why the government should do that.

Indeed, there are poor people in our communities, but it is these very people that do not benefit from handouts. It is the well-connected that do. So it is a lame excuse to say the government or ZANU-PF is doing this for the poor.

No. It is doing it for the party elite. Like Lazarus in the bible, the poor have to make do with the crumbs- the leftovers.

The land reform itself is a typical example. Studies have now shown that the programme was a huge success yet people were doing things for themselves without support from the government (apart from giving them the land), and without support from the international community or donors because both did not support the programme.

So why tamper with something that is working so well. Yes, it needs some tweaking here and there. But the government should leave that to the banks, or perhaps put pressure on the banks to give farmers concessionary loans. Or empower the Land Bank to do so.

Giving out handouts is un-African. African societies have always had poor people but they never starved. They were asked to help the better-off “kuruvira” and in exchange they would be given either the oxen to plough their own field, or food to feed their own families or clothes for their families. Yes, they might have been forced to plough the fields of the better-off first, but in the end, they ploughed their own. It was never for free.

The poor also married through what was known as “kugarira”, that is, working for the family of the bride until the family was satisfied the son-in-law had paid his dues. There was value addition to the bride.

Even the bible clearly states that if you do not want to work, you should not eat. Jesus Christ himself refused to feed people for free. When told that the thousands that had come to listen to his sermon were hungry and wanted to eat, he asked what was there for him to bless so that the people could eat.

When people realised that Jesus could feed them and more flocked to his sermons, he reduced the number of people that could eat for free from 5 000 to 4 000 and there were even fewer leftovers. And that was the last time he gave thousands free food.

So where does ZANU-PF get the idea that it can just give people things for free and expect the country to develop?

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