Chinamasa, Pasi: Between a rock and a hard place

via Chinamasa, Pasi: Between a rock and a hard place – NewsDay Zimbabwe 29 July 2014 by Rashweat Mukundu

Zimbabweans and their rulers, meaning Zanu PF, are so used to sensational stories that at least one such story has to be generated or searched for almost every day and every week.

So addicted are we as a people to juicy stories, the majority of them, negative that we cannot go for a day or a week without some revelation of sorts. It is now our national pastime to search for who is doing what, be it in politics, business or social circles.

We feel sick if the media reports what should be the ordinary story.

In essence, the singular most important story of our time, which is the bad economic situation, is often clouded by the juicy yet inconsequential stories that include the attempts by First Lady Grace Mugabe to land a senior post in Zanu PF and hopefully, as others speculate, launch a bid for the Presidency.

We have been told a number of times by a still-fit and jolly President Robert Mugabe that there is no vacancy at State House and I guess that this message also relates to Grace’s ambition and she, like everyone else, has to wait for 2018.

In essence the story of Grace’s political manoeuvres is not the story of our time, but that of Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa and Zimra chief Gershem Pasi.

The two men have been in the media for a number of days in the past few weeks if not months.

Not so much because they bear good news regarding our economic fortunes, but because they are, like headless chickens, clueless on how they are going to mobilise resources to pay civil servants and meet other governments costs.

I feel pity for the two because the offices they occupy are not admirable at this moment.

The struggles that face Pasi and Chinamasa are made worse by the fact that they are essentially alone in this matter as Mugabe has already asked Chinamasa to tender his resignation if he cannot find the money.

I guess Chinamasa has also made a similar invitation to Pasi, and Pasi has made a similar invitation to his senior managers who have taken the same message to the lowest in the Zimra hierarchy: the messengers and the cleaners.

If the trajectory of the message is to be reversed and the cleaners and messengers at Zimra say please tell the bosses we are not going anywhere we will have a situation in which Pasi tells Chinamasa to go to hell with his demands and a similar message is passed on to Mugabe, by Chinamasa that handiende (I will not go) and Mugabe tells all of us that he is not going anywhere.

The intention of this illustration is to demonstrate that economic failure and chaos are not so much Pasi and Chinamasa issues, but rest with the person at the top, that is Mugabe.

By consistently telling all of us that he is not prepared to leave office at 90 years of age and that there is no vacancy at State House, the President is not engendering a sense of a smooth transition and continuity.

Part of the economic crisis is a result of uncertainty caused by the mugabe’s age and lack of policy clarity. When the talk of and thinking about transition and continuity is blocked and almost criminalised, then a people becomes locked in a routine, no matter how devastating to their survival that routine is.

In Zanu PF the routine includes praise-singing and kneeling before Mugabe as we see senior ministers do. The Cabinet is not thinking and planning Cabinet, but a complying and complacent one.

It has no initiative and is under the cloud of a debilitating leadership that is clueless.

The Cabinet is made up of yes-men and yes-women who have no ideas of their own. It means the ambitious are careful to express themselves.

More importantly, it means that the likes of Pasi and Chinamasa cannot tell the boss that it is not their fault that Zimbabwe has no money, but that the cause is a failing leadership, poorly crafted policies, unfriendly investment laws, endemic corruption and that without a change of direction, a change of attitude is needed for Chinamasa and Pasi to be rescued from the difficult place they occupy now.

Instead of admitting the challenges they face, Pasi and Chinamasa are sinking in their shells attempting to douse a house fire with a cupful of water.

The challenge facing the two is that they are not bold enough to tell the boss that his ideas and policies are not working. The two are content to be sitting where they are and running all over in the hope that by some miracle things will work out, just on their own.

The economic problems confronting Zimbabwe are far beyond and above Chinamasa’s and Pasi’s pay grade. These are problems that need leadership attention right at the top.

This, as we have noted attempts by Pasi to collect revenue from politically connected businesses, has been resisted.

Instead of supporting Pasi he is in fact been rubbished and asked to stop garnishing accounts of entities in tax payments arrears or simply defaulting.

Those complaining do not see why Chinamasa and Pasi are troubling them when the big man has not said even a word to support the actions of his cabinet minister and Zimra management.

While Pasi and Chinamasa are being squeezed to collect revenue, there is no policy support to grow the revenue base. The two have been set up for failure and if courageous enough should indeed resign and go farming.