As Citizens’ Cabinet we seek to register once again our grave concern about the dire social, economic and political crisis in the country and reiterate the call we made on 14th January 2019 for a broad-based inclusive national dialogue to urgently find solutions to people’s pain and suffering and to reset the country onto a sustainable reconstruction and development path.
In our 14th January 2019 statement, we called on the government to officially recognize a State of Economic Emergency in the country and occasion total national mobilization and resource prioritization to provide urgent relief to the pain and suffering that citizens are experiencing.
We cited as reasons for declaring a State of Economic Emergency the abject desperation of citizens, particularly lack of jobs and viable means of livelihood especially for young people; the devaluation of salaries to near zero; skyrocketing prices of basic commodities; the health crisis characterized by unavailability and unaffordability of essential drugs; recurrent fuel shortages; and the US dollar – RTGS currency confusion and its’ destabilizing effect to the whole economy.
As Citizens, we believe in peaceful and nonviolent protest and the right to petition as provided for in our constitution and we condemn unreservedly the unfortunate violence and looting of innocent people’s property that was witnessed during the shutdown of 14 – 16 January. Above all, we condemn the extreme violence and brutality that characterized the state clampdown against protesters and call for justice and accountability for all those involved. The work of rebuilding trust and confidence of citizens in the polity must be taken seriously.
It is important to underscore that the explosion of anger witnessed across the country is a consequence of a deep national crisis; evidence that an entire generation of young people feels abandoned. While a lot can be said about the trigger, the reality is that people’s unbearable pain and suffering and desperation is the firewood that fed the flames of the shutdown protest. And for as long as people’s survival problems are not addressed the false “return to normalcy” and “calm”, will not last. Indeed, what we have seen so far may turn out to only be the lightning announcing the thunder that will come.
It is with this background that we reiterate our calls for a broad-based, inclusive national dialogue as a matter of urgency and pronounce ourselves on the following:
Conditions for dialogue
We welcome the emerging resonance around the need for national dialogue and particularly note calls that have come from the churches, business, the NPRC, the Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance, and most recently, President Mnangagwa. We also note that The Elders in their most recent statement made a call for inclusive national dialogue.
We believe that dialogue will only be meaningful under the right conditions which include:
● the immediate cessation of the clampdown against civil society and activists;
● the return of the military to barracks;
● freedom for all innocent political, civic and ordinary citizens who were arrested
without cause;
● due process for all those accused of crimes; accountability for the security forces who commitment crimes;
● and security and safety guarantees to all those driven into hiding.
Composition of the dialogue
An inclusive national dialogue is imperative given the diversity and magnitude of the problems facing our country. The repository for solutions goes beyond political parties requiring the participation of all relevant constituencies, including business, churches, women, youth, civil society and indeed political parties to enable co-creation of solutions that work for all.
Facilitation
Given the reality of extreme political polarization in our country, we believe that the political facilitation of the dialogue must be led by a capable, high level, respected African statesman/ stateswoman acceptable to all, with SADC and the AU as guarantors.
Furthermore, we believe that the dialogue must be technically supported by a competent civic institution with proven capacity to steward such a complex national process towards agreeable outcomes.
Purpose of the dialogue
The inclusive national dialogue that we are calling for, should be about dealing with substantive issues that are central to resetting our country onto a viable path to reconstruction and development. From our perspective, the priority should be on repairing the economy and securing decent livelihoods for the generality of Zimbabweans; guaranteeing justice for victims of political violence; creating conditions to restore social cohesion and national healing and rebuilding the institutions necessary to underpin a prosperous democratic country founded on social and economic justice.
It is particularly important the place the following issues on the agenda of the envisaged national dialogue:
1. Dealing with corruption – Corruption, especially by political elites and their corporate allies, has become a malignant cancer requiring drastic treatment if the country is to survive. The envisaged national dialogue must deal decisively with the issue. Efforts to turn around the economy will remain a pipe dream until and unless the tentacles of corruption that are now spread across the country are cut.
2. Accountability and Rule of Law – The envisaged national dialogue must restore constitutionalism in this country. Our whole governance mechanism – across both political and economic spheres – must be underpinned by Accountability and the Rule of Law.
3. Land Re -Redistribution – It is time that as a nation we face up to the gross injustice of the current land ownership in this country, particularly the fact that highly connected elites got huge farms of the most prime land absolutely free of charge. Most of these farms have been degraded and are going underutilized with negative consequences to the whole economy. We believe that as a matter of justice, this undue benefit must be addressed through an arrangement by which the state sells farm land to those who are willing to go into farming as a business. We are even willing to concede the right of first refusal to those currently in possession of the farms, however, the principle of paying for the land must be upheld. There can be no other scientific basis of allocating this scarce resource without unduly favoring one Zimbabwean over another when all have equal rights, entitlements and obligations under the constitution.
5. Environmental protection – We urgently need a national conversation on saving and protecting our environment. The current rate of environmental degradation, including deforestation is alarming and a great injustice to current and future generations.
6. Public sector reform – The envisaged national dialogue must attend to public sector reform, particularly to ensure total independence of public institutions from partisan political interests; strengthening of public institutions, administrative and civil service reform, as well as revenue administration and public financial management.
Outcomes
We believe that the dialogue must produce a framework that allows for collective and competent attention to the most pressing challenges affecting people and reset the country onto a viable reconstruction and development path. The form and content of such a framework cannot be prescribed in advance, rather it has to be a product of dialogue.
Our call for civil society consultations
As the chorus for national dialogue grows, we make a call and equally make ourselves available for collective civil society consultations and consensus building on the conditions, vision, principles, composition, facilitation, agenda and possible outcomes of the envisioned national dialogue. We believe these wider consultations must commence in earnest and reflect truly broad-based and inclusive participation.