A couple of female artists are taking a more serious look at the arts industry – me included. We are realizing and appreciating that there is more to being a performer, let alone a female one in this man’s world. All thanks to the Flame Project by Pamberi Trust, we have been getting lessons on branding, pricing, marketing and related subjects that make what we do not just entertaining and enjoyable on stage but that it is a serious career and we ourselves much treat it as such.

For anybody outside yourself to realize your worth, you first need to realize it yourself. That is just the essence of what we have been learning. We had such an amazing session last week and it was a different meeting all together. I guess with a lot of artists in the same room, no meeting is the same as the last one! We have become sort of a family; there is a sisterhood going on with us and it has been growing since we began our first module. However we did not do the typical artists in one place act but we did accounts. Yes we did accounts and we had the most fun! Our facilitator was Virginia Phiri. That lady does not walk on ice skates – she is the most down to earth person. She made it all seem so easy and by the end of day two of our workshop we were accounting and it was making sense. Accounting for me was just demystified. You know how it is that when you hear accounts you are thinking mathematics but it is just simple algebra. If there is one thing that I think all of the ladies that were there came away with is that basic understanding of business will make things easier especially in the arts industry.

Above all, for me I realized that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.

Corruption is a deplorable activity that haunts Zimbabwe across all walks of life. Corruption is spreading like a veldt fire and a tough stance by all stakeholders is well overdue. The African Parliamentary Network Against Corruption (APNAC) Zimbabwe chapter has taken it upon its shoulders to weather the storm by calling their first press conference to publicly express their denunciation of any form of corruption in the country.

Speaking at the conference, the Chairman for APNAC, Honourable Willas Madzimure, expressed concern that some public office bearers are busy enriching themselves at a time when the taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet. He called upon the President of Zimbabwe to quickly appoint the Anti Corruption Commission, which might help look into these issues. He also added that the Commission so assigned should promptly give feed feedback to the parliamentarians. Honourable Madzimure also called upon the government to implement the law that requires members of parliament and senior government officials to declare their assets to the state before assuming public office, stressing also that their accumulation of wealth should be put under public scrutiny.

Honourable Madzimure made it clear that Members of Parliament have the right to access any sector to find facts on behalf of the people whom they represent. His statement comes amid reports that the government barred MPs from the Mines and Energy portfolio committee from touring the Chiadzwa diamond fields on a fact-finding mission to understand the background to the allegations of corrupt dealings involving senior government officials.

APNAC expressed condemnation of the mis-allocation of residential stands, approval of substandard and incomplete infrastructure developments and abuse of council property including vehicles. He also expressed concern over the reports that councilors are allegedly allocating themselves houses belonging to the poor and on reports that illustrate corruption by high-level government official and influential business people. He called upon the police to desist from assuming a reluctant stance when handling corruption cases that involve government officials when they are reported.

Though the Honourable Madzimure did not mention any names, it was apparent that the APNAC criticism was directed at the council house scandal and the corruption that has entangled Minister Chombo and the flamboyant businessman, Chiyangwa, who boasts of owning almost a fifth of the city of Harare. The two men are alleged to have connived with top city officials to allocate themselves vast tracts of land. The case is still under police investigation, though a council report clearly pointed out anomalies in the manner in which land deals were undertaken.

Responding to the question whether APNAC is prepared to shoulder potential victimisation and dangerous consequences in their endeavor to combat corruption involving very powerful politicians, APNAC members stressed that they have sacrificially placed themselves on the persecution altar, for the cause of good governance. However to achieve better results the APNAC called for synergies with the police and other interested parties that share the same hatred for corruption.

In Zimbabwe because of the lack of US and Rand coins shoppers are offered their change from purchases made in a variety of forms. These include bubble gum, suckers, packets of 3 minute noodles, dodgey looking chocolates from other failed states and bananas. Last night a friend told me that she recently got her change in headache tablets – Paracetemol I think she said. Maybe we should lobby for headache tablets all round as change because of what we have to put up with in Zimbabwe. A good example is Morgan Tsvangirai’s latest idiotic statement. He reckons that Zimbabwe is no longer at risk to investors and that the political crisis that destroyed the economy no longer exists. I wonder what he makes of the latest bid on the part of the Government of Zimbabwe to take over businesses, or the massive failure in our health and education systems or the continued farm invasions and the ongoing decimation of our agricultural sector? Never mind the ongoing political violence and disrespect for the rule of law. MT clearly needs a wake up pill or two. But then again both he and Mugabe are desperate for money from international sources to make right the wrongs of the last decade, so they’ll say anything. And meanwhile, who gets to keep the money made from diamonds and Zimbabwe’s other natural resources? Zvakwana!

Empowerment. Gender Equity. Gender mainstreaming. Youth agenda. These have all become buzzwords without a real meaning. They represent lofty paper ideals but seldom translate into any qualitative or quantitative transformation. Zimbabwe, like Africa is faced by a multitude of problems, none of which can be solved by catchy slogans and high visibility, low output awareness campaigns. When the dust of the road shows has settled and the last echo of the slogan has faded away, we find that the problems have not gone away.

I feel that our biggest problem as a nation is that we won’t allow ourselves to think beyond a certain point. In the eighties and nineties, education was all the rage. Before the present educational crisis, we boasted of having one of the highest literacy rates on the continent. Yet, we are at the very bottom of the heap socially, economically and politically. It is very clear that education alone does not solve problems. It seems that we have become a nation that is too educated to take risks. When the economy was plagued with hyperinflation and subject to the whim of the Reserve Bank Governor, the educated fled and became another buzzword, economic migrants.

A new millennium brought with it new buzzwords like globalisation, and development. Now, Aid has become big business. I would wager any amount that the non-governmental sector rivals any government in being the biggest single employer. NGOs do work that is often necessary. They fill in the gaps that governments so often miss, because of corruption and mismanagement. Regardless, they are founded on the principle of giving without requiring the receiver to do any work. Aid creates dependency, nowhere else is that more obvious than right here at home. It has been almost ten years; Zimbabwe has had a healthy NGO sector for longer than that, yet we are no closer to our development goals than when we started.

In truth, our problem from the beginning has been a lack of creativity and innovation. Yes we have a large skill set, yes we are highly educated, but without creativity and innovation we are a nation of donor dependent employees, not proud self-sufficient employers. Solutions must come from us, not via Western Union money gram or another donor funded feeding scheme.

Psychology Maziwisa, Interim President of the Union for Sustainable Democracy (USD), shared an article with us on the subject of sanctions. He makes a lot of sense, particularly on the point that sanctions should only be lifted once Mugabe and Zanu PF embrace democratic freedoms in this country.

I was quite surprised though at Psychology’s reference to the “attention seeking” women of WOZA. Getting attention is the first step in highlighting abuse, and WOZA does this admirably. For my part I wish there were more attention seeking activist organisations and NGOs at work in Zimbabwe. The office and hotel workshop room have become far too comfortable for most.

I was also intrigued by his reference to their “frivolous” protest. I wonder what made it frivolous because surely the issue of stable and affordable power supply is at the heart of development and investment? And of course, it’s quite nice not to have to heat up a packet soup on a camping stove when ZESA decides to cut power to your home.

But . . . here you go, Psychology Maziwisa on sanctions:

Far from hurting the generality of the people of Zimbabwe, as Mugabe would conveniently and deceitfully want everyone, everywhere to believe, it is becoming increasingly clear that the targeted sanctions are achieving their desired effect: to hurt the authoritarian Robert Mugabe and his self-interested mob. The European Union’s sanctions must and, are likely to, stay put until our President does more than just heed ‘Julius Mugabe’s’ call to denounce violence.

There is nothing more indicative of the stinging and now unbearable effects of the targeted sanctions than the increasing complaints and calls for those sanctions to be removed and removed as soon as yesterday. Any psychologist would surely tell you that what that means is plain and simple: now is precisely the wrong time to relax the sanctions. If anything, now is the opportune time to go a gear up and intensify their effects by adding even more.

The devils have been hit where it matters the most for them- in their pockets. While the travel bans have curtailed the lavish spending of individuals like Grace Mugabe, preventing them from indulging their shopping addictions in places like Paris, London and Rome, the bulk of the mob have been barred from sending their beloved but often very dull children to study at expensive colleges in Australia, the UK and America as the once highly   esteemed University of Zimbabwe lamentably falls into decay.

There is no reason and no way the European Union would unanimously decide to ease the pressure on those who have hurt us for so long and never bothered to do anything to mitigate our suffering except to mouth empty words denouncing violence at an  Independence  ‘celebration’, after having inflicted 30 years of perennial misery. Even the Bible warns against words without action. Accordingly, Mugabe’s message of tolerance on 18 April 2010 must be ignored for what it is: mere talk.

In case these people need reminding, the sanctions are there for a reason and that is that a handful of people have vandalised the country in a way almost too frightening to comprehend. Many hundreds of innocent and law-abiding citizens have been tortured and killed simply for expressing their democratic desire to elect a government of their choice.

Their best opportunity for reform came when Morgan Tsvangirai, who, by all accounts, won the last presidential election, chose to form a Government of National Unity (GNU) with Robert Mugabe. I think it is fair to say that, while Mugabe has somewhat become a better dictator after September 15, 2008, he has not done enough for the people of Zimbabwe to warrant any mitigation of the targeted sanctions.

Political reform is not coming as quickly as it could. For instance, while the country was ‘celebrating’ independence, political activists were being held in the dark, cold and miserable cells of the notorious Harare Central Police Station. Frivolous though their protest was, the attention-seeking ladies of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) should not have been forced to endure an entire ‘ Independence ’ weekend in primitive, uninhabitable cells.

Thanks to the Mugabe government’s mismanagement and corruption, thousands of precious and innocent children have been left to die from otherwise preventable diseases like measles – even as  South Africa  responsibly manages to administer a second round of injections to boost against attacks from measles and polio.

While Mugabe says he regrets low pay for teachers, he customarily takes sixty or so of otherwise unnecessary thugs with him on international trips, to Copenhagen for instance, for an entire week and gives each of them US$5,000 in daily expenses. Hypocrisy of the highest order!

Progress on human rights and related issues will be key to motivating the relaxation of the targeted sanctions. However, despite the setting up of a Media Commission responsible with the licensing of new media houses, not even one has been licensed. Instead, a comical character has been laughably introduced in the form of Attorney General Johannes Tomana to head that process. Everyone knows that that individual is serious about nothing except to see this country degenerate into further political anarchy. He is the very man who, when addressed years back about the inhumanity of our jails, retorted: ‘A jail is not meant to be nice’.

If Mugabe and his henchmen are serious about meriting the lifting of sanctions, they must, in the first instance, genuinely promote human dignity, freedom of speech and the rule of law, end arbitrary arrests, apply Zimbabwean laws to the fullest extent possible without bias, and forthwith bring to justice all perpetrators of politically motivated violence. They must act in conformity with the letter and spirit of the Global Political Agreement.

The people of  Zimbabwe  have suffered far too long at the hands of a bunch of self-interested individuals who have unconscionably abused their power. Our consolation, however, should be found in the fact that the targeted recipients of the sanctions are clearly being stung and stung hard by them. We applaud this effect and wish it could be intensified until we witness real change- change that has not come in three decades.

Quite evidently, targeted sanctions are an essential lever to ensure progress in our country.

Last week I had the privilege to witness WOZA trying to hand over a petition to the management of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) at their headquarters at Megawatt House on Samora Machel Avenue in Harare.

I say privilege because there are very few organisations, activists and members of the public in Zimbabwe who are brave enough to put themselves on the street and demand a better Zimbabwe, be that in the delivery of justice or basic services.

The gathering of WOZA men and women was peaceful, good humoured and vibrant. The crowd that came around to witness the proceedings all agreed that Zimbabweans are reeling under the utility charges and poor service that they are receiving. As one of our bloggers, Dydimus Zengenene, rightly points out this week, ZESA’s charges might be in line with regional tariffs but our salaries are woefully inadequate to cope with the demands being placed on us.

In the meantime the chefs of Zimbabwe, ranging from Mugabe, to the ZESA hierarchy itself, to the champions of the indigenisation bill, are all pretty comfortable in their plush homes lit by generators.

The leadership of WOZA were arrested and spent Independence weekend in jail. This is an OUTRAGE.

Zimbabwe must allow for peaceful protest – full stop.

You probably weren’t a part of the WOZA protest at ZESA last week but it’s pretty certain that you’re affected by poor service and high electricity charges.

So, here’s something you Can do . . .

Action: Email the ZESA public relations department and tell them that:

a)    ZESA management must lobby for the immediate release of the WOZA leadership

b)    ZESA management must meet with WOZA to listen to, and discuss the issues being raised by Zimbabweans

c)    ZESA management should issue an apology to WOZA for not welcoming them and hearing their concerns

Email: pr@zesa.co.zw