Last week it was reported that 20 years after they were sent fleeing from their farms by war veterans, white Zimbabweans are returning to work the fields.
The once productive farms, even the ones taken over by former president Robert Mugabe's clan, have seen production collapse and in many instances stopped altogether.
Good sense has overridden bad politics. It helps of course that former president Robert Mugabe ego is not in the way or more importantly the political imperative that led to that economic suicide does not obtain.
First off a bit of background. When the English colonised Zimbabwe they carved off the best land for themselves and relegated the African to the marginalised land...
The white farmer proved so successful that Zimbabwe became the breadbasket of the south, building a strong agricultural sector to complement their mineral resource endowment.
No doubt an injustice was done. An attempt to redress this in an orderly fashion with the return to black majority rule in 1980 was squandered by Mugabe and his cronies. In 2000, facing mounting opposition and an imploding economy, Mugabe let war veterans loose on white farmers, occupying their land without compensation as the state looked on.
This was wrong on many fronts but two stand out for me.
This was a blatant attack on the property rights not only of the white farmers but by extension all Zimbabweans. This is critical because if property rights are brought into question the willingness to invest in the country suffers. Who wants to build a house, open a shop or start any business when they are not sure if tomorrow the government, which sworn to protect life and property, will go beyond coveting to taking over their business?
Secondly, hate them or love them, the white farmer was the backbone of the agricultural sector, which not only fed the population but provided significant hard currency, in support of an economy we envied for its good infrastructure, quality health and education services.
The inevitable happened. The economy went into a tailspin and Zimbabwe is not even a shadow of the shadow of its former self.
"In Uganda we are no strangers to this suicidal political thinking. Idi Amin on a whim, chased the Asians, our dominant commercial class, to win cheap and dubious political points and with no thought to how the gap would be bridged. Its no surprise that 50 years later, hungover from that trauma, Ugandans cannot save long term and as a consequence have few long term investments to mention.
As a result, we lost almost 30 years of economic progress – we only recovered to our 1970 level around 2000.
The thing about history is that those who don’t pay attention to it are bound to repeat the same errors.
Zimbabwe is in a desperate situation that calls for desperate solutions. They have just come out of an election which saw Emerson Mnagagwa re-elected. Inflation was last reported at 176 percent, an official figure that understates the problem and a currency that is not worth the paper its printed on.
Its hard to see how southern African economy can be turned around under a truly democratic dispensation.
Again, we have been there. Harare will have to cut down public expenditure, especially unsustainable subsidies, sell off hemorrhaging public enterprises, break up inefficient monopolies and liberalise the economy...
This will on one hand, liberate the individual initiative of Zimbabweans and attract new investment, while at the same time leading to massive job losses and further economic strain.
Unlike Uganda where our food supply comes from small holder farmers, who whether hell or highwater, will always produce food, the Zimbabweans don’t have that buffer and therefore economic reform will be that much more painful.
All this will be politically costly for any government to attempt. For the last two decades faced with this reality Harare has been reluctant or unwilling to make the hard decisions to turn the economy around, because of this.
The use of anything but the Zimbabwe dollar as a currency, makes drastic economic reform all the more urgent. What it means is that Zimbabwe has little room to manoeuvre when its money supply controlled by Washington or Pretoria. Zimbabwe’s priorities are not necessarily those of the US or South Africa.
A situation not unlike the former French colonies of western and central Africa whose budget is controlled by Paris, has led to intergenerational poverty and has served as the trigger for recent coups.
Zimbabweans are a nice people and they do not deserve this. No one does.
The lesson of course is that bad politics, with no reference to the people, leads to poor economics which in turn leads to bad politics. A vicious cycle that needs strong leadership to break out of. Whether Mnagagwa and the ZANU-PF are up to the task, only time will tell.
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