Inside Zim economic crisis

 Lack of leadership now exposed

ZIMBABWE is currently facing a national crisis rooted in the dearth of leadership, eliciting political, social and economic instability of extraordinary enormity.

Strangely, Zimbabweans have looked everywhere, but nonetheless incessantly miss this glaring and obvious reality, much to their unrelenting suffering.

This is the sad truth which has now come to the fore for all of us to grasp and perchance take a lead in delivering a remedy.

The absence of leadership is unambiguous in government where public officers find comfort in expending energy and time in self-centered power retention fights as well as in the fragmented opposition that fights about “who and how” to convene a national dialogue platform intended to deliberate on the fast declining economic situation.

Lack of leadership also manifests itself in the church, which, true to fashion, enjoys harvesting resigned citizens and in the divided civil society. Surely, it is obvious that Zimbabwe is in serious deficiency of a visionary and people-centred leadership.

The leadership deficit in trade unionism is clear. This once vibrant sector looks enmeshed in whether to confront or to dialogue with government in respect of unpaid bonuses and the employer’s reluctance to meet agreed working conditions.

With this kind of leadership running the affairs of the country, should anyone be surprised as to why there has not been progress on the implementation of the new constitution? The resistance seems clearly to be the result of the fact that the new constitution confers ample rights and freedoms to citizens and therefore impedes the wishes of the Zanu PF ruling elite.

Is it not extraordinary therefore that Zimbabweans expect this regime to deliver public services and to eliminate corruption within government institutions, given the kind of leadership that it is? Unashamedly, issues of corruption are raised only to serve the power retention agenda and are therefore targeted at specific persons.

Lack of delivery by central government, local government and indeed by the opposition parties has not attracted any coherent rebuttal from civic society. Shouldn’t we in fact be thinking of a platform or process to watch over the “watchdog”, given that there is a clear absence of leadership in this arena as well?

As I have already observed, the church that is expected to provide sanctuary for the suffering masses through the much-needed spiritual guidance and leadership, has tended to follow a well-established routine giving the resigned masses a mirage of hope and whiling their time as they wait to eventually meet up with their heavenly father.

Zimbabwe needs a complete renewal of leadership at all levels. That way we can start afresh and begin to find solutions to our myriad challenges.