Since the beginning of the land reform programme and when our comrades gave themselves access to the means of production, our economic terrain has continued to be dominated by looting, pillaging and plunder. Generally, looting does not rob the country of its wealth, that is, if the looter uses the resources productively to invest within the same country. Looting simply becomes an unethical, unorthodox and unproductive transfer of resources from one person to another.

Develop me: Tapiwa Gomo

The current generation of looters is by far different from those of the colonial era. Those of the colonial era stole and developed. They pushed our people out of their land, but they developed the land. We inherited what they built. The roads, the infrastructure and the services that have now been neglected by those of our own were built by the colonialists. Yes, those people that have been branded imperialists built this Zimbabwe. The borders, the bridges, the roads, the railway lines, the systems and the public utilities are theirs.

The development we see in Zimbabwe today is actually the colonialists’ masterplan. None of it all is ours. Our own looters have not contributed anything apart from building for themselves expensive houses and driving fancy cars.
They did not add anything, but they subtracted, destroyed and neglected so much of what we inherited from the colonialists.

Why then are two generations of looters different? The answer is simple. One looted for production, investment and profit, while the other loots for consumption, opulence and show-off. The colonial looter had the objective of development and progress at the chore of his looting. He understood the essence of investment, how it acquires power and earns social status. He understood that looting is both shortlived and unethical and, therefore, one should invest what is looted to sanitise it and to benefit the society. He also understood that investment comes with market competition, political power and a high social status.

The more one invests, the more they become competitive and the faster they cease to be socially viewed as a looter, but a contributor to the social and economic development of the society. Jobs are created, infrastructure is built and services expand and development occurs organically. Wealth acquired through investment confers power giving the investor the capacity to influence decisions. In this generation of ours, we have people who loot and spend and still want to impose themselves on the society with nothing, but their names and political affiliation to offer.

In cultures where achievement is measured in terms of wealth, the wealthier one becomes the higher the status. Real status is not acquired by showing off expensive tastes, but by how wealth develops their environment and transforms other people’s lives. The superiority experienced by our white folks during the colonial era had nothing to do with the colour of their skin. It had a lot to do with what they invested from what they looted, their wealth which gave them superior social status. It is as simple as that.

The next level was the emergence of the service industry and again creating more jobs and opportunities for those marginalised by historical looting concurrently improving the standard of life for the majority. Sadly, it is how capitalism works if development is to be achieved. It is mostly the evil people who will do the most evil of things for the greater good of the society. China lowered wages to attract foreign investment, generate capital and to boost domestic income. These conditions are fast vanishing as China has become a global economic powerhouse with workers’ rights fast occupying centre stage.

Achieving development is not always clean business, but it needs to be driven by national interests than the individual gluttony that we see in this generation of looters. Sadly, the colonial looter had a better grasp of national interests than our own looters. This is why our ministers are broke, poor and become beggars the day they lose their jobs. They loot to consume and appease friends and relatives at the expense of their own and national development. Seventeen years after the land reform, one would have expected a new generation of indigenous investors sustaining new industries, but instead they have mastered the art of investing in propaganda, lies and excuses. It is because of sanctions that they spend their loot on pleasure, so they tell us.

Sometimes in order for a country to achieve or sustain development, it is important to swallow pride and feed from the unethical while developing a replacement plan. The land reform was a good lesson of how not to tamper with the hand that feeds you. Instead of pushing a belief grounded on a barren nationalist ideology, we should have placed faith where we were certain of development. Political power was at stake because it had threatened economic power.
And as we have witnessed in the last 17 years, political ideologies provide the only way to illusionary and imagined world, whereas economic orthodox is the sure way to development and prosperity.

Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa