By Vivian V. Siziba
A disturbing and boring trend of sloganeering by the regime has become a chorus for every government minister. Notoriously, as of late, heads of institutions, particularly tertiary institutions of higher learning, vice chancellors, college principals and others have joined the fray.
As they fall on each other parroting those slogans, one would be forgiven for concluding that the current crop of academic heads are graduates of Border Gezi Youth Service Training Centers. Academicians are torch bearers in any society, what has gone wrong with Zimbabwean ones?
Honestly, does a party that has secured a mandate to govern need to spend most of its time sloganeering?
All along, the writer has been of the strong view that the appropriate space for sloganeering is the electoral occasions when political formation contestants are competing for the attention of the potential voters and in most cases, those slogans highlight major political programs embraced in their electoral manifestos.
A manifesto is one of the primary sources of policy and once a party emerges victorious in a plebiscite, it has to embark in policy formulation through the legislative processes in order to fulfill those electoral pledges. Needless for sloganeering but delivery of goods and services.
Do Zanu PF chefs care or consider what they pledge during electoral campaigns?
Nevertheless, the tragic political example is an unwarranted departure from its 2023 electoral manifesto which pledged heaven on earth. Instead of delivering those pledges it crafted slogans ‘anenge aripo 2030,’ never included in the manifesto, also ‘middle income country by 2030’. Is there any possibility of achieving this feat under the following:
1. The country’s infrastructure, particularly the roads, the railway network has collapsed under the weight of neglect. Apart from this, very few or no additional trafficable roads were constructed to complement the road network inherited from Ian Smith’s Rhodesia. The robust road network is the artery of the economy.
2. The country is enduring several thousand hours of punishing power outages translating into millions of dollars lost in production. ‘No one to be left behind’. The opposite is true, everyone is left behind or let down by power outages.
3. The economy is informalised. The regime inherited a diversified economy with a robust manufacturing base. Now a pale shadow of itself and a warehouse of second-hand clothes that have decimated the clothing industry.
Of worrying note, is the conviction by Zanu PF supporters that Vision 2030 is the sole brain child of the sitting President and that in the event of his departure from state house, this would collapse like a deck of cards. That it is the United Nations’ Sustainable Developmental Goals to be adopted and developed by global communities is beyond the imagination of Zanu PF supporters.
The country continues to endure a serious strain of economic meltdown under a barrage of slogans not backed by practical action and side by side with slogans are sanctions rhetoric scapegoating poor governance, mediocrity and unmitigated performance failures.
Vivian V. Siziba is the ZAPU Secretary for Bulawayo Province. He writes in his personal capacity.
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