Just come back from two trips to Eastern Highlands. Tolls both times, both ways. Now, I’ve seen a newspaper that says, “$15 million has been collected. Toll booths built. Roads paved.”

The only pavement I have seen laid is the rumble strips at the approach to these toll booths.

No potholes have been filled, edges maintained. I haven’t seen a new sign, or even new road markings painted.

Strikes me the whole scheme is job creation. New employees, or old employees now able to sit outside. And new places for the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to sit and do nothing (which they do so well).

And I see ‘new’ things (who sold them those?). E.g. caravans, road cones, porta loos, solar panels.

Can someone show me, (not tell me), the point of this exercise? Not verbage – aims, objectives, uses, plans – but actual things? What has been done aside from collecting $15 million?

This entry was posted on August 25th, 2010 at 2:04 pm by Michael Laban and is filed under Activism, Governance, Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.