Of Robert Mugabe’s threats and the impact on the economy

Zimbabwe is an exciting place. You can’t beat the way we shoot ourselves in the foot. There has been a lot of debate surrounding the merits and demerits of the targeted sanctions. The sanctions have been blamed for all our economic ills and the absence of foreign direct investment (FDI). Then in one swoop Robert Mugabe removed whatever little chance we had of FDI by threatening to take over companies in revenge for the targeted sanctions.

Any foreign investor watching Robert Mugabe’s speech in Mutare will have deduced that if you invest in Zimbabwe your investment is only safe if your government is in good books with Zimbabwe. This failure to distinguish between individuals and their governments or countries of origin has been our biggest problem. Using business people as a pawn in our fight with western governments is wrong. What the Chinese, Indians and other potential investors will ask themselves is: What will happen when Mugabe is annoyed with their governments? The answer is manifestly clear in Mugabe’s statement to the Zanu PF (ZPF) conference. If we don’t like your government we will take away your business. With hundreds of countries around the world falling over each other to create investor friendly policies one cannot see any serious investors coming to Zimbabwe.

We have been here before. The land reform was another example of a badly thought out policy that was premised on revenge. ZPF and Mugabe had a quarrel with the then British government and they took their ire on all the white farmers. Every white farmer became a pawn in the power game between Zimbabwe and Britain. I leave it to others to judge whether the land reform policy has been a success in achieving its aims. However, the lesson that we should have learnt from our land reform programme is that we should not have policies driven by anger or any other emotion. Policies should be thought through and carefully planned. This has not been ZPF’s strength over the years – war vet payments, farm invasions, murambatsvina, and now this...

Once again ZPF is looking for a populist policy to shore up their falling popularity. Faced with certain defeat in 2000 they came up with the violent land reform programme. This gave them a reason to visit violence on all people on the farms. While the media focussed on the farmers who were killed or savagely attacked, the narrative ignored the suffering of the farm workers. It largely ignored the violence that was visited on them for daring to oppose ZPF in the constitutional referendum. The real beneficiaries of the land reform have been senior ZPF and security people who now have several farms. Now ZPF has come up with another populist policy designed to hoodwink voters into thinking that they care about Zimbabweans. This new policy as written by Mugabe at the ZPF conference will once again benefit the ZPF big fish. They will throw lots and divide the spoils among themselves while ordinary Zimbabweans live in the clutches of poverty. It will be another reason to visit violence on the people of Zimbabwe.

Someone in ZPF should tell Mugabe that he is putting the final nail on Zimbabwe’s coffin. We have had a decade of destroying the economy. The GPA had allowed us to arrest the decline but now that Mugabe believes that power, by any means, is better than protecting our future the little gains are about to disappear. I know some people will accuse me of saying that native Zimbabweans have no capacity to run these companies. I am not suggesting this at all but I am stating that whatever we do, we need FDI if our economy is to grow. The (un)intended consequences of Mugabe’s rant at his party’s conference will be to scare away investors. If the intention is to punish the Americans and the British then inadvertently this policy will scare away foreign investors.

If Mugabe was one who listens to advice then I would have offered my advice but he is stubborn and allergic to advice so I will not waste my advice on him. However, there are those in his party to whom he might listen. These women and men should tell him he is making a mistake. Those in ZPF who love Zimbabwe must act against Mugabe. I wish.

Lessons from the failed England World Cup bid

There is understandable anger in England after the country failed to win the right to host the 2018 Football World Cup. There is no doubt that England presented one of the best technical and commercial bids for the 2018 World Cup. This was in the FIFA report. Understandably England will feel that after losing out to Germany in 2006 they would have a claim to host it after 44years of waiting. This is especially so when one considers that Germany which hosted the 1974 has already had a second bite of the cherry.
I am convinced that after the Charlie Dempsey debacle in the voting for the 2006 World Cup all people of goodwill should have roundly condemned the FIFA way of doing business. However, there was silence or half-hearted protests when South Africa was clearly cheated of the right to host the World Cup. There is no evidence that bribes were paid but it is difficult not to believe the conspiracy theorists who believe that Charlie Dempsey was given incentives so that he would refuse to vote as instructed by his Confederation. I am highly sceptical of Dempsey’s explanation that he abstained because “...the pressure from all sides including "an attempt to bribe" him had become too much for him.” I am convinced that the real reason was to make sure that the vote would not be decided by the President’s casting vote. Knowing that Sepp Blatter was likely to vote for South Africa they connived to have Dempsey to abstain. This was probably not the first time that people had been offered favours in return for voting or in this case not voting. Everyone knew that South Africa had been cheated but it was not influential enough for people to call for an enquiry into the FIFA voting system. It was accepted that Germany had won and nothing was made of it.
However, by not challenging the injustice of the 2006 situation Football Associations around the world legitimised FIFA’s way of doing business. FIFA Executive Committee acts with impunity knowing that they are accountable only to themselves. England, USA and Australia who feel aggrieved by the FIFA voting system for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups have finally experienced what it feels like to know that decisions in football have nothing to do with football. We have allowed FIFA to be the judge and jury in all matters football. I think that if football lovers around the world do not demand transparency from FIFA then we will continue to see decisions like the ones for the 2006 and 2018. We demand transparency from our political and business leaders why is it wrong to demand openness and transparency from football’s governing board – FIFA.
What today’s decision underlines is that any country that dares challenge FIFA risks losing in a very embarrassing way. From now on countries wishing to host the World Cup will have to muzzle their media in order not to bruise the egos of the FIFA Executive Committee. This is frightening prospect! Should the world allow 24 men to use their power to stop legitimate questions being asked about their business dealings? Is it right that we stop the media from asking questions so as not jeopardise our chance of hosting the World Cup? The fear of the FIFA Executive Committee was so evident in England where a nation that strongly believes in media freedom was so cowed that there was a concerted effort to stop the broadcasting of the Panorama programme on FIFA corruption. It was strange for a nation that a few months ago was celebrating The Telegraph for outing the MPs expense scandal; a nation currently engrossed in the 250 000 documents leaked from the US State Department by Wikileaks was imploring the BBC to delay the airing of the Panorama programme so as not to upset the all powerful FIFA Executive Committee. Until we trim FIFA’s omnipotence the whole footballing world will forever be beholden to the 24 men who make up the FIFA Executive Committee. We will be so scared of digging up any dirt on the Executive members in case our nation will one day want to bid for the World Cup.
This is not about the England 2018 bid but about the dangerous precedent set by the events of the last few weeks. To quote Edmund Burke “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." The evil that is in the FIFA empire is thriving because good (wo)men have chosen not to do anything about. We must demand accountability from FIFA without fear or favour. We demand accountability from all our national and international organisations hence we must demand accountability from FIFA. We need to unravel the murky and secretive world of FIFA business dealings.