Some people have expressed their concerns at how Zimbabwe
has increased the production of tobacco at a time when 2.2 million Zimbabweans
are facing starvation this year alone.
It would be dangerously over simplistic to blame farmers
for growing tobacco or the Banks for, reportedly, spending most of $620 million
funding the tobacco farmers but only a misery 4.8% of it funding maize farmers.
As I see it the problem here is two-fold: first the
government clearly needs to get its house in order and pay farmers competitive
prices for their maize. If the price government pays for imported maize is
cheaper than local maize then the nation is doing well by maximizing production
of tobacco from whose earning it can buy maize with a large surplus left over.
Past experience has shown that the government pays peanuts to the local farmers
for their maize but, since it cannot bully the international market, pay a
fortune for imported maize.
The Mugabe regime is well known for its short term
policies and false accounting! It is nothing new for government to encourage
the export of one commodity and creating a shortage in the country and the people
spending a fortune importing it back. Many of the booming towns along Zimbabwe’s
borders have been selling goods made in Zimbabwe to Zimbabweans who would have
travelled from every corner to cross the border, buy and go straight back.
The Zimbabwe government would report of increased export
earnings and that is all that mattered.
Second; even when, out of patriotism, the local farmers have forgone the huge profits tobacco brings and grown maize; government has taken its sweet time to pay them for their produce. Farmers too have families to feed, workers to pay, school fees to be paid, etc.; showing a delivery note to the GMB will not chase away the hunger pains.
"The government has now availed $9.2-million to the GMB to go towards settling farmers' outstanding payments. The payments are 18 months overdue. We have not been able to pay the farmers for the past two harvests," admitted GMB manager, Mandizha.
Even if maize paid more than tobacco, farmers would be
better advised growing tobacco and be paid cash on delivery than grow
maize and wait what is an eternity, especially for the small scale farms with
no other sources of income, to be paid.
To
paraphrase the great Economist, Adam Smith, it is not out of the generosity of
the farmers that Zimbabweans look to solve the country's food shortages, now
a yearly recurrence since the seizures of the farms by Mugabe and his cronies;
but rather to sound economic policies and something that has been equally amiss
in Zimbabwe - the rule of law!
7 comments:
@ Informer
Mugabe will never admit it of course but I believe the old tyrant knows his reign has been a monumental failure. And, worse still, he does not have the foggiest idea how to get out of the mess!
I have a job for you; what should we do to get out of the mess!
@ Rafique702
We only have to copy what the other people have done to solve their governance problems, for example. And yet here we are 500 years since the Greek came up with democracy and we not only have blatantly rigged elections but accept the results as if bussed voters, the lack of a voters roll and all the other irregularities were nothing!
We are paying dearly for these short-sighted decisions and still that has done nothing to shock us out of this comatose mental slumber. That is worrying! If our own suffering and unnecessary deaths is not going to force us to seat up and pay attention; what will?
@ Chamisa
Chamisa, MDC secretary, says MDC is still a force to be reckoned with.
We all know MDC "rangova zumbu rakapinda nyoka", a chicken house ravished by a snake. You telling us otherwise is not going to change anything particular when the party has decided to keep the same failed and incompetent leaders. Chamisa, with the snake still in the chicken house, you cannot claim to be a chicken farmer; for intent and purpose, what you are now is a snake-farmer!
@ Dumbu
If there were any prices given out for being naïve, Dumbu you would have got it. Some of the MDC's supporters have had a serious rethink following the easily with which Mugabe rigged the elections.
Mugabe might as well have been playing with a total imbecile, who else other than a imbecile would have accepted going into an election with no voters roll, accepted the number of polling station being increased from 2 000 to 9 000 two days before the elections, etc., etc. Tsvangirai was stating the obvious when he said the elections were rigged, what really showed Tsvangirai for the imbecile he is, is his follow up statement - he did not have any evidence! That clinched it for most people; Tsvangirai is a certified idiot but clearly not for you Dumbu.
"These dictators will go, come rain come thunder," you say. Yes, thank God the dictator will go but only if the nation has the vision to find a competent leader to do it. The imbecile, Tsvangirai will never get a cunning tyrant like Mugabe out come rain, sun, thunder or whatever else.
The idiot had five years to implement the democratic reforms and not even one reform was im-plemented. Of course the nation had rain, sun, thunder and whatever else in those five years and yet one even one reform saw the light of day.
Dumbu, you blind loyalty is worrying; it shows your brain has turned to fat totally impermeable to common sense much less reason. You have a vote, what chance does the nation have getting out of this mess with an electorate with mushy fat instead of brain!
@ Muktar
You got that one right; "Mugabe succeeded in stealing the July elections under the dozy MDC and whatever confidence he got is fast evaporating since no one wants to invest here". Ndiko kunodzi kubaya gudo mukanwa. In this case you kill two of the baboons with one thrust; Tsvangirai for being "dozy" and Mugabe for vote rigging and then scaring away all would be investors!
@ Nhamodzenyika
Mugabe and Zanu PF have given the nation's true war liberation heroes and heroines a really bad name - most people now think all those who fought in the war did so for selfish gain. I know many who fought in the war and believed in the freedom and liberty of all and they are not happy with the direction the country has taken under Mugabe under the guise of liberation war heroes. These true liberators and like the rest of us, they too were denied a meaningful voice all these years!
@ Matebele
There is nothing to fear from any of the MDC supporters. After all the euphoria about winning the elections and dismissing warning about hold the elections without the reforms most of the supporter have since realized they had been stupid to follow incompetent and blundering leaders like Tsvangirai and Ncube. They supporters have been very quite; "vakandumbirwa" as one would say in Shona.
Yes there are some who still have their heads buried in the backsides of their respective leaders. But like all such idiots they smile of s***t and talk nonsense. Other than the smile what is there to fear about someone talking nonsense!
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