Last week I suggested that the Zimbabwe government was a burden on the taxpayer and should be trimmed. That is always easier said than done but this week I will make very specific proposals as to how to cut government expenditure in Zimbabwe.


The Zimbabwe government should develop a more realistic defence policy which recognizes that we have no natural enemies in southern Africa: none of our neighbors have any known territorial claims against us. Despite ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe's paranoia, neither the Brits nor the Americans have any desire to re-colonize Zimbabwe for any reason.

Those who keep making this assertion are plainly delusional, which is not entirely surprising given the advanced age of those who keep making these claims.

Furthermore, our membership in SADC means that we have the added security of a common defense policy with our neighbours. At the very least, we have an opportunity to propose and champion such a common defense policy if it were not already on SADC's agenda.

Granted that while our defence build-up in the post-independence era may have been driven by the apartheid regime in neighbouring South Africa, in more recent years it has been motivated by the political vulnerabilities of the septogenarians and octogenarians running the country.

What would such a new defence policy look like? One may understably wonder why we need a defence ministry at all given the prospects of regional integration, our land-locked status and lack of natural enemies.

However, since I cannot predict the future, I am willing to stipulate that we need a defence establishment, leaving open the question of what size of defence department and at what cost to the taxpayer?

If it was up to me, I would look to the Swiss model but having already conceded the point for the sake of advancing the argument, I suggest that what Zimbabwe needs is a fierce fighting force of about ten thousand men and women, roughly a quarter of the current defence force.

This goal cannot be achieved over-night but is achievable in the long term by means of attrition and reorganisation. Any new government emerging from the current chaos should preferably set up a commission to study this matter and come up with firm proposals about how to trim our defence spending in line with a new set of national priorities.

If all other reasons fail, affordability should suffice and guide any future defence policy.

Next week, I will suggest more ways to rescue Zimbabwean taxpayers from the grip of greedy political schemers.

To the victors, the spoils!

If recent press reports are anything to go by, it appears that the MDC era has arrived. The goings on in entities run by the MDC at local and national levels suggest that party leaders have started gouging from the crumbs left over from the ZANU-PF looting orgy. MDC politicians are growing fat at the expense of the rate and tax payers.

Surprise! Surprise!

It is clear that as far as most of these MDC politicians are concerned, the struggle against ZANU-PF was a struggle for the perks, legit or otherwise, that come with control of local and national resources. Naturally, party apologists have already begun dishing out an endless list of excuses, inter alia, the truly ludicrous suggestion that some of the nefarious practices were inherited from the former ruling party. By implication, there was nothing that the MDC could do about it but to continue the robbery.

Talk about a code of conduct for party leaders seems to be lifted right out of the ZANU-PF playbook for the sole purpose of deceiving the people of Zimbabwe into believing that something is being done about these corrupt activities. Party leaders have been visiting local councils and ministries to do something which they are not qualified to do: investigate and find evidence of corruption and presumably recommend disciplinary measures against perpetrators.

This is not only a recipe for intra-party strife but also will be greeted with glee at Chibuku house.
It is not my business to advise any political party and if the MDC would like to destroy themselves from within, that's something I cannot do anything about.

Suffice it for me to suggest that the movement should use this transition phase in the affairs of the nation to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of its internal screening and election systems for party leaders.

Let the rotten apples expose themselves in the meantime. In the end, the only true disinfectant is the sunshine. This means that any member of the party should be able to run for any position within the party and government- from branch secretary to party president, from councillor to state president. Such a system would ensure that that the party was continually renewed in terms of leadership and ideas.

The current party leadership ought to be seen as a transitional one, which should be replaced in a more open political environment, not one designed principally to foil ZANU-PF infiltration.

We are screwed!

One of the few silver linings of the recent economic, social and political apocalypse in Zimbabwe is the chance to clear the slate and start all over. Transitions of any kind can be painful exercises but they do offer the opportunity to avoid the pitfalls of the past.

For better or for worse, human beings have very short memories. We need short memories in order to cope with tragedy and adversity so that we can make the best of our short stays on this planet; we need long memories so that we do not fall prey to our recent short-comings or failures of judgment. Balancing these two competing interests is the bread and butter of everyday life.

Sadly, many of us do not do a good job of reconciling our long-term and short-term memories, which explains why many abused spouses often end up in a series of such abusive relationships.

Extrapolating this balancing act to the country level, one can say that Zimbabweans have a lot to learn from the national catastrophe of the past thirty years. Re-writing the constitution is one of many things that may contribute towards establishing a national memory bank. But it is by no means enough. Indeed, it is naive to think that a piece of paper could be the panacea to our democracy deficit. After all, one of the least talked about short-comings of the past few decades is how the Zimbabwe government ignored its own laws, including the constitution, to achieve many of its political victories, such as the forcible seizure of land.

I think that the constitution-building process can be useful in preserving both long and short term national memory by institutionalizing it. It can be shown that much of what transpired in recent years in Zimbabwe could have been avoided with stronger national institutions such as the police force and the judiciary. Once these supposedly independent bodies came under the control of the ruling party, Zimbabweans were (and still are) at the mercy of thugs operating out of Chibuku house.

One of the most obvious ways to strengthen national institutions is to limit the over-arching power of the executive over them. A starting point would be to make sure that parliament has a say over all appointments of a certain rank to the judiciary, the police, the army, the foreign service and the public service.

Such a confirmation process would limit the tendency of politicians to appoint their home-boys and relatives to the cabinet and the judiciary and could mark the beginning of true accountability in our national affairs which could result in enhanced confidence in some of the institutions at the core of our democracy.

I do not believe that the current deal-making approach adopted by the parties to the so-called inclusive government will result in stronger institutional memory banks. It smells like more of the same.

Never before in our short history has such a small number of vulnerable politicians owed so much to so many of their friends, clansmen and henchmen.

Once again, it appears that we are screwed!