Reading through The Zimbabwean as part of my daily morning dosage, the story of the Buy Zimbabwe Campaign by Ngoni Chanakira caught my eye. A ‘”Chief Executive’s Walk” across Harare to Africa Unity Square’ … the campaign is meant to encourage Zimbabweans to buy local goods as opposed to the cheap imports that currently flood the market. A noble idea, right? But this is utter hogwash.

The stupidity manifests from two angles. First, is it really feasible at this point to ask a Zimbabwean to stop buying imports, and second, who is doing the campaign?

If there are executives in the campaign I hope there is no one coming from the retail industry because all of what they are selling is mostly, if not all, imported goods. I am not even sure if there is any sector that has recovered enough to supply the market with at least half their demands. I wonder which Zimbabwean goods they would encourage us to by?

If Zimbabwean goods can be found their cost is far higher than the average worker’s pocket can afford. Media has been running awash with debates of pay increases for civil servants, which is now more of a political issue than life and death. Assuming that Gibbs Dube report has some elements of truth, it emerges that civil servants have had their salaries increased by about $90 or lets say $100 dollars to be polite. Now they earn within the region of $300. Given the high costs of rentals, utilities and food, how much will be left for the worker to buy expensive imported products. Yes as a worker, I want to promote my country, but where are the goods? The few products on the market are just too expensive to afford. We buy Chinese products, Japanese second hand cars and the like. But everyone knows that the Chinese products on the market are not as durable as we want. We just buy them as a matter of convenience or to at least keep ourselves going. We are desperately waiting for that day when our businesses are back to full swing. Unfortunately the day is taking forever to come.

It would be absurd for one to waste time and effort to search for a Japanese car on the Internet if a new car was reasonably affordable at Willowvale. The losses that local companies are making are not because people are not buying their products as such but mainly because they are not manufacturing enough, or that the spirit of over pricing products is still haunting them. It is true that the cost of production could still be too high for now, but it would not be possible to buy a shoe that costs half my salary simply because it has been manufactured in Zimbabwe. Yet Mr Jiang has a weak Beijing brand of the same shoe costing $5. I better buy 13 pairs of his shoes. Perhaps they might even last longer.

When executives march to encourage people to buy local goods, it’s not bad if they too sell local goods at a price that we can afford, or at least with the payment conditions that are flexible enough for the poor worker.

That brings me to the second point. Today these executives are blaming the end consumer for being unpatriotic. Are they not the same executives who tasted prisons for what we called unethical business practices which fueled inflation? I even remember Econet selling its 0913 sim card for a $100, which was unjustified profiteering. They now sell this product for $2. Are they not the same business people who trebled their prices whenever the worker got an increment? What it points to is the fact that we do not trust the business people any more or at least we were made not to. They do not happen to have the very same patriotism, which they want customers to have when it comes to buying their goods, do they? History shows otherwise. Responding to their call is like a group of sheep that responds positively to a jackal’s call for a meeting.

I encourage Mr. Muyaradzi Hwengwere to go ahead and organise a meeting of executives on the 3rd of August. It is allowed for executives to walk together, share ideas, and even bask in the Africa Unity Square sun, enjoying the green lawn and that flamboyant fountain if it is still works. However making noise about that event, claiming to be having a purpose of making us buy their local goods is just a fallacy. Discouraging the buying of foreign goods is not bad for an economy with some threads to function on its own. Our dear country heavily relies on imported products both directly or indirectly. Stuff as basic as food, soap etc are all imports. Of late there have been talks to ban second hand car imports from Japan. Do we ever bother to know how much ZIMRA is making out of that process? The popular toll gates are all harvesting from the cheap cars around here, and the poor transport system is being supplemented, illegally though, by those cars.

The Buy Zimbabwe Campaign is a brilliant idea at the wrong time by the wrong people.

A bottle of Jameson, and 3 hooves on my desk this morning.
She knows me well.

I decided on Sunday, in my infinite wisdom, complete with almost-perforated eardrum (there was passionate nose blowing involved, caused by regurgitation, induced by alcohol – but I’ve made the executive decision not to go into any further detail, to preserve what is left of my tattered dignity) to finally embark on my little home décor project.

I recently acquired a new bed, the last one having served for 17 years. And so I needed to purchase a headboard. I duly went to investigate prices and availability, a fruitless and frustrating exercise, and thus my little project was born.

Buying the fabric was the easy part. Many happy hours were spent at granny’s house cutting and stitching, dancing and eating, and generally making the best of a bad situation. I arrived, kids in tow, to 3 functioning sewing machines. I left with only one still working, and granny gamely trying to smile (having spent all of her Sunday supervising me) and trying to convince me that these machines are temperamental and will play up from time to time.

In approximately 7 hours, I managed to produce one cushion, and that was only with a large amount of assistance. I proudly transported the cushion home and placed it in the dining room, in full view as you come in the kitchen door. I was expecting to bask in the warm approval and approbation of my loving spouse. But still I wait. I have since moved the cushion to the bedroom, propped up on his side of the bed where it will eventually hang, directly behind his pillows. No word as yet. I suppose I should be grateful because he might have asked why there’s only one, forcing me back to granny’s to break the last lonely machine, which, let’s face it, I am going to have to do when I make the matching cushion.

Not for nothing did I opt for cookery over needlework at school.

Phillip Toledano has “never been very interested in straightforward portrait photography”. Check out his series of photographs of people playing video games.

I hear some treason trials are starting in Zimbabwe today. This is just ridiculous! How can anyone go to jail (or face death) for watching a video? Or more correctly, trying to see a DVD? Almost as fantastical as a Harry Potter movie (which is also in the news).

The people who should be on trial for treason are senior leaders of armed and uniformed groups (which are paid for by the Zimbabwe tax payer) who tell the tax payer who they will, and who they will not, take orders from. As if that body was their personal property, and they are a warlord living in anarchy.

If they will not take orders from the person the tax payer appoints to represent them, they should say so and leave the job – the one they cannot do. To say who they will and will not take orders from, and then stay in charge of that body of armed men, is treason. So dangerous to the country that the punishment for that crime is still hanging.

I read with some kind of disgust the other day a story about ZESA managers who were fuming because Energy Minister Elton Mangoma had ordered the slashing of their salaries. They actually told the minister it was not his business to question their salaries. I wondered rather blithely if they would have responded with such brashness if this had come from a Zanu PF minister! But then it has become the typical story here where parastatals and state enterprises senior officials have continued to command ridiculous salaries when there is virtually nothing to justify it.

We all know about the mismanagement of these big concerns over the years with accusations that officials were riding on the back of Zanu PF patronage, and where in fact keeping up with the party’s streak of looting state resources. It is here where consciences have been numbed as the plundering of resources has rendered these state utility providers a huge burden on tax and rate payers with no service provision to speak of. So a minister who comes through with a broom to sweep the rot naturally becomes the bad guy because the logic is simple: no one ever complained before, and simply because – as some have claimed – these officials have been political appointees.

We read each time how South African government ministers are ever vigilant cracking the whip on unnecessary perks for officials who appear to think working for government is a sure way to bleed the purse. What then is amiss with Mangoma putting caps on salaries, or at least demanding that they get performance-based salary increments? Makes sense to me. We heard even from Ignatius Chombo the other week when he demanded a salary cap for Town Clerks where in some cases these municipality CEOs are reported to be earning monthly salaries of up to USD15,000.

Surely these salaries must be justified, and for a long time these people have been getting absurd perks that are not even based on performance, which reminds one of those US CEOs who run loss-making corporations but at the end of the year award themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, of course much to the chagrin of shareholders. Indeed Zimbabwe is in dire need of ministers who will put a stop to this nonsense.