MY TIME IN ZIMBABWE, PART ONE

Map of southern Africa:

This blog post was prompted Smarty's blog post here in which she contemplated going on an African safari, perhaps even involving a stay in Zimbabwe.

This blog post will be submitted in two parts because my need for wordiness can't be suppressed to make it one part! But in my defence, JN is serialising her adventures in two parts- see https://jnsjottings.blogspot.com/2024/04/thrills-and-beauty-part-one.html and https://jnsjottings.blogspot.com/2024/04/thrills-and-beauty-part-two.html - so, in the spirit of solidarity, I'm just doing a JN! And furthering my defence, JN's two-parter covered just one weekend; my two-parter covers one week!

In the mid-1990s, I spent a week as a consultant in Zimbabwe. The Cabinet Office at the heart of British government asked me to advise the Zimbabwean government about privatisation. I was to accompany a Cabinet Office civil servant and we were under strict instructions to be 'neutral' in our advice. For some reason, the trip was paid for by the Swedish government.

The reasons I was asked were twofold. First, I was hired by the British government to run training courses for mainly members of the African National Congress (ANC) in preparation for the end of apartheid in South Africa. The British government, even though the ANC's leader Nelson Mandela was still in prison on Robben Island, was doing its bit to ensure a smooth transition from white rule to black rule in South Africa. Running these training courses, which I loved doing, put me on the civil service radar to ask me to do similar ventures.

The second reason was that the senior civil servant who asked to run the training courses for South Africans and advise Zimbabweans about privatisation used to be my lecturer when I did my first degree at Coventry University. He kept in touch with me as I moved into academia and as he moved out of academia into the civil service. Networking pays!

Back to Zimbabwe. I met my civil servant colleague at London Gatwick Airport before catching our flight to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. On first chatting to him, I thought that we'd struggle to get on but we got on fine as it turned out. He was, at least in my opinion, the stereotype of an elite Oxbridge-educated civil servant. He was always suited up though he did loosen up as our trip unfolded.

Soon after arriving in Zimbabwe, we were chauffeured to a well appointed bungalow, owned by the Swedish government, on the outskirts of Harare. We were strongly advised not to venture into Harare's city centre, for reasons of crime, but to confine ourselves to the bungalow's relatively well-heeled neighbourhood. We heeded that advice, just a five-minute walk from the bungalow was a complex of European-styled shops, bars and restaurants. That complex was our night life. It was always an interesting walk to the complex. Africans, and perhaps I should I say black Africans, walk a lot as they can't afford to go by car, so there was a lot of walking activity on the road leading to the complex. People, mainly women, selling their wares usually fruit were a constant on that road to the complex.

Not only did our bungalow have a swimming pool, but we had a chauffeur at our disposal as well as two maids and, slightly worryingly, a guard stationed at the entrance to the bungalow. I must admit that I felt slightly uncomfortable with these post-imperial trappings but I wasn't in a position to complain. I had a job, albeit a well paid job to do. And all the staff detached to me and my colleague were making a living out of our stay.

Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management Hotel, near Harare:

On the first day after settling into our bungalow home, we were driven to the headquarters of the Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management (ZIPAM) to meet its head. We were served lunch while waiting for the head to greet us. He took a very long time to get to us. While waiting for him, we asked the waiter why the road to the headquarters was so good when other roads weren't. He explained that this road, then called Robert Mugabe Way, further leads to the presidential palace where Robert Mugabe, the then Zimbabwean President, lived. I thought that to be a little odd but soon into the trip it all made sense.

Eventually the head of ZIPAM came over to our table to introduce himself to us. Everyone was fawning around him. At the time I just put his lateness down to poor timekeeping, but it turned out to be more than that. ZIPAM's head told us that it was an honour to have us to advise the Zimbabwean government how to privatise. But despite his pleasantries, it was clear he wasn't interested in privatisation or even us.

Blue Roof, Robert Mugabe's presidential palace, near Harare:

On being driven back to our bungalow, we asked our chauffeur what went on there over lunch. Our chauffeur was called Paget and he was an employee of ZIPAM. Paget explained that his boss, the head of ZIPAM, was using our trip only to further his career. Slightly puzzled, I asked Paget why that was so.

Paget explained that to get on in Zimbabwe, certainly within government, that a Zimbabwean had to be a member of the ruling political party, the Zimbabwean African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). I asked Paget whether he was a ZANU-PF member. He said he was but only because his mother took out party membership for him (without telling him in advance) when she realised he wasn't a member of the ruling party. At the time there were purges, including 'disappearances' in the middle of the night, against those who weren't supporting ZANU-PF, and his mother proud that her son had got a government job took out party membership for him for his protection. A government job in Zimbabwe was and probably still is a better paid job and certainly a more secure job than in the private sector. I was intrigued at Paget's answer.

The other context to all this is that Zimbabwe was at the time (and unfortunately still is at this time), despite its resources, an impoverished country. Hyperinflation and unemployment, both causing desperate poverty, were and are still running amok. The Zimbabwean government, led by Robert Mugabe, was 'forced' to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bail-out.

As part of the IMF's so-called structural adjustment programmes, there are conditions attached to its loans. Commonly the IMF insists that privatisation, plus cuts to government spending and especially its pensions, are conditions of its loans. Despite unfounded rumours that the Malaysian government was going to bail out Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean government was a busted flush and had to go begging to the IMF to keep afloat.

The penny finally dropped. Because of the IMF's privatisation conditions, I knew then why I was sent to Zimbabwe. Thanks to Paget, I knew I was in a Zimbabwean political battlefield.

Harare:

The programme for the week was quite intense; only the evenings, plus the weekend, were left free for us to do our own thing. Each of us had to give about three talks every day, sometimes to the same and sometimes to a different audience. Most of our time was spent in Harare, but we were due to spend two days in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city.

After the second day, the first day of talks, two things were immediately apparent. Firstly, I was expecting the audience to be predominantly black but about half the audience was white. It was later explained to me that, though white rule formally ended in Zimbabwe in 1979, white people still exercised considerable economic and even political power in the country. Often, a black person would head up a government agency as part of the deal to end white rule, but a white person, usually its former head, would remain as deputy and be the power-behind-the-throne.

Secondly, it was clear that my colleague wasn't being neutral in his portrayal of privatisation. Overwhelmingly he argued that privatisation was good and would be good for Zimbabwe. I disagreed with his take as the private sector, especially foreign investors, would only cherry-pick the profitable bits of the Zimbabwean state leaving the government and its people even more impoverished. I decided to change tack; I decided not to be neutral in my further talks and instead I would stress the risks, costs and disadvantages of privatisation for Zimbabwe. This meant I often openly argued with my colleague, which many of the audience seemed to find amusing.

After each day, our talks would invariably be reported on the national news. Fame at last, but at what price? All will be revealed in Part Two!

Hatcliffe, Harare: