Goals Coming Out Of The Net After Elections

Financial Gazette

20th February 2014

By Maggie Mzumara 

CIVIL servants are finding that the ball did not find the net in their quest for salary increments. For now the promised poverty datum line (PDL)-adjusted salaries remain a mirage.
In the heat of the moment, at the very height of political desperation, precariously riding on the ball-finding-the-net metaphor, ZANU-PF found itself clutching at anything and everything in order to beef up its popularity.
In the frenzy of the election heat emanating from the onslaught of competition mounted by political opponents, promises were made both explicitly and implicitly. Foresight and caution as to whether or not the implementation will be practicable thereafter was thrown away to the wind. Needless to point out, riding on the wave of some hugely populistic promises, the revolutionary party has left in  its wake a trail of injured victims of grandiose pies in the sky.

The latest in the trail of disappointed and disillusioned parties, are civil servants, who, in the election fever when the revolutionary party stood at knife’s point in the face of gushing competition from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) were promised salary increments in line with the poverty datum line (PDL). After a protracted process  fraught with various challenges ranging from their own internal bickering and power struggles, to the ZANU-PF government’s shifting  of goal posts, an agreement was finally reached on the promised increments.

Hardly a month later, with civil servants eager to get their hands on the fruits of their lengthy negotiations, the hope has rudely evaporated only to be replaced by despair, disappointment and disillusionment. Apparently government will not be able to give them their increments. At least not until April.

The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Patrick Chinamasa, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Nicholas Goche have cited the lack of funds in the government coffers as reason for the delay.

Although when the increment finally does come, it will be backdated to January 2014, the disappointment cannot be overlooked.
“As workers we are not happy. We have been looking forward to our increment for years,” said Richard Gundani, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association. “We need to make it clear to government that delays are not welcome.”

And yet they had believed, especially coming as it did from the highest level of power and authority.
“Some of them clearly bought into the promise and so were mislead,” said former education minister David Coltart. “I am not surprised. ZANU-PF made a whole range of announcements at election time. They made some rash promises, but the reality is that the economy is in trouble.”

As they climb down from the lofty promises, civil servants need to at least land on something for consolation and renewed hope. And for now that something is a carefully crafted roadmap.
“We are demanding that we quickly engage government through a national joint negotiation committee to review implementation. We are hoping to come up with a clear roadmap detailing when exactly the increments will come. The implementation must begin and it must begin. There must not be any delays in the implementation,” said Gundani.

But teachers are not the only ones who have been left licking the wounds of broken promises.
Over the years, there has been suspicion that some youths have fallen prey to the lure of promises, again explicitly and implicitly.
One youth, Tonderai Maenza, also known as Kaboko in the run up to the elections made repeated appearances on the state broadcaster spewing out propaganda which at the time he thought had the blessing of the ruling party.
He even went ahead and registered an organisation, the Zimbabwe Struggle Support Movement, in line with the expectations that the revolutionary would give him a pat on the back and carry him on its coat tails en route to some gravy train post the elections.

Kaboko has learnt the hard way that you do not just jump onto a bandwagon whose destination you are not sure of.
“I went to ZTV more than 20 times speaking on empowerment and other messages,” said the 38-year-old.  “But now nobody wants to see me.”

Although Kaboko has no written commitment from the ruling party to prove his or his organisation’s affiliation, and the Financial Gazette couldn’t readily get anyone from the party to vouch for him, he was able to produce a letter of confirmation of registration of his organisation from the Zimbabwe Youth Council.

Perhaps his was implicit encouragement, but that post elections he is in the cold with no fertile ground for his propagandistic messages cannot be any more explicit than it already is.
Short-term history also has some musicians and others who have been roped into, or roped themselves onto the bandwagon of the party only to be spewed out and forgotten after a season of usefulness.

Other groups who have been tagged onto the trail, during campaigns and not given nearly as much visibility after they have outdone their usefulness are the apostolic sect church members. Just before elections some uncanny kinship with the ruling party was kindled for all and sundry to see, but   not as much visibility of than kinship, if at all it exists,  lingers on after the embers of the election fires have been put out.
“Ndiko kunonzi kushandiswa chaiko kwatinoitwa.  Kuti wese aita chinhu chake ouya kumapostori (This is what we call being used. That anyone with their agenda wants to come to people of the apostolic sect.),” Mai Bishop Chitanda, leader of the apostolic women in the country said in the run up to the last elections.