The MDC-PF Government's 100 Day Plan: Go Begging

GETTING A HAIR CUT AT BEITBRIDGE BORDER POST BEFORE GOING TO LOOK FOR A JOB IN SOUTH AFRICA:

Instead of formulating policies that create jobs and empower industry, the MDC-PF's 100 Day Plan shockingly relies only on going begging or "mobilising resources". It is a frighteningly inept document

My God!

We are in more trouble than even I thought.

If you have not done so already, I urge you to read the 100 day plan that was launched by the Prime Minister last week and see for yourself evidence that this government has no clue about how to revive this country.

I fear this MDC-PF government is in over its head and does not have a single clue as to how to get us out of this mess.

The 100 Day Plan is a naive plan that can be explained in one simple word: Aid. You could replace that with "Donors" if you like.

This is what the government went to Victoria Falls for?

We are in trouble.

The 100-Day Plan is simply a wish list and, more disturbingly, a rehash of failed ZANU PF policies.

For example:

The plan calls for the dishing out of goodies left right and centre, without saying where the money for this will come from. These include the "target" at the Agriculture Ministry to "facilitate" the dishing out of crop inputs and seedlings by June 1. This is followed by this:

Increase tobacco to 150kgs, Cotton to 450 000mt, sugarcane to 600 000mt and soya beans to 240 000mt......mobilising farming equipment and implements for both the summer and winter crops

Just like that? But how?

Like I said, it is not a plan, it is wish list.

What the MDC-PF government fails to understand is that government is not a farmer and can therefore not "increase tobacco".

Government is not a factory can therefore not "supply fertiliser".

Well, the madness stretches across the board.

Targets for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce include:

Ensure adequate supply of fertiliser for winter crops by end of May...Develop pricing models (price controls).....Compile comprehensive information on the manufacturing sector (what were they doing in opposition if not studying the gravity and magnitude of the problems facing this critical sector for the last ten years?)......and then "Promote rebranding of Zimbabwe through the hosting of ZITF (which was gonna happen anyway and was a flop), COMESA (Mugabe's long-awaited Chairmanship of that body is now here)...

As you read through this wish list that is trying to pass itself off as a plan, you begin to realise something: THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

A wish list does not a plan make.

There is legislation, by-laws and investment environmental issues that make is impossible for locals as well as the foreigners to invest here. There are impediments that have been set in the way of business over more than 30 years that must be addressed by this MDC-PF government. 

But they do nothing of the sort. Instead they want to "mobilise fertiliser" and "hold the COMESA Summit".

One of the more laughable targets belongs to the Ministry of Women's Affairs and Gender and Community Development. And it is?

"Hire a Consultant."!

Local Government has a target that says "Design and Fund a Local Authority Retreat"!

Excellent! More tax dollars spent on hotel bills and imported beers while sewage flows in the streets.

Ministry of Public Works, held by the MDC, (which should be at the forefront of using innovative infrastructural works that are historically the engines for employment and economic revival in an economy in the doldrums like ours) is tasked with what?

I'll tell you: "Cleaning all government buildings by end of June 2009".

"Complete 19 Government buildings by end of July (the government already has too many buildings housing too many underemployed people who, if they so wish,  should be allowed by the Prime Minister to go on strike, because the country will not notice the difference) and

maintenance and rehabilitation of all sanitary facilities by end of June 2009"

That is IT? Yes, folks, that is the 100 day plan of this important ministry.

Meantime, Nelson Chamisa, whose Ministry has been stolen by Mugabe, is tasked with mainly Internet thingies to do and some cryptic targets about "parastatal status report in 60 days" (I doubt Mugabe will let him anywhere near the parastatal's offices, whose boards are chaired or populated by retired soldiers and armed forces people.)

It really would be a waste of your time and mine to spend any more time on this joke they call a 100 day plan.

This government has no clue what it is doing, where it should start or how it should be doing what it needs to do: remove the impediments that make it impossible for business to function properly and create jobs in Zimbabwe.

Instead of urging the Ministry of Finance to "widen the tax base", they should be tasking that same ministry to provide specific breaks on tax set against specific reinvestment targets for companies."

For example, if a company reinvests a certain amount into its own business in the 90 days and proves it has not only created X% capacity increase but also new jobs, then it gets given tax breaks to allow it to do more of the same.

Instead, the Prime Minister, who proudly claimed responsibility for the document at its launch, exhorts Tendai Biti to "widen the tax base". How, if you do not create any jobs?

There is not a single item in the whole 100 day plan that even attempts to stimulate job creation in the market. Instead, it is all about going begging and dishing out the alms to an expectant nation.

LIKE I SAID, WE ARE IN TROUBLE.