Alex T. Magaisa
“The problem with you Zimbabweans, is that you are not angry enough”. This was the assessment of an acquaintance who served at a diplomatic mission of an African country, serving in Harare sometime in 2013.
“You have an amazing capacity to tolerate nonsense from your politicians and public officers,” he added.
“And the problem is, your politicians and public officers know this too well and that is why they do what they want. In my country, this wouldn’t happen. People wouldn’t accept it.”
It was a damning assessment, but one that I was unable to challenge save from saying we were a patient and resilient people. “We always make a plan,” by way of explanation, if not in defence.
“But no-one will take you seriously because your own people don’t seem to take their predicament seriously. In my country we say you cannot expect neighbours to come and cry more than you at your own funeral.”
He was right. We have often outsourced our solutions, hoping that someone from somewhere will come and solve our problems.
I thought about this conversation today as I read the big story doing the rounds, listing the demands being made for the suspended Town Clerk of the City of Harare, Dr Mahachi. Mahachi was suspended by the council some weeks ago on grounds of failure to execute his functions, among other charges. He then elected to leave office and has made demands for a settlement. The demands are contained in a letter written by his lawyers. It is these demands that have shocked a nation.
While it might be said that initial demands in negotiations are often pitched high, the list reported in the media is nothing short of ridiculous and one might even add, outrageous, in light of the council’s failure to deliver essential services to residents because it has no funds. How does he expect council to meet those demands, people ask.
Part of the 22-item list of demands includes a huge pay-out, running into millions of dollars as a severance package. Apart from 3 months cash payment in-lieu-of-notice, he also wants 6 months’ severance compensation. He also wants 3 months wages relocation – although where he is relocating to is not mentioned. He has pegged the rate of payment at 2013 figures, when he and his colleagues were earning astronomical figures that shocked a nation when they were discovered. At another state-related entity, PSMAS, its CEO Cuthbert Dube was earning nearly half-a million a onth in wages and benefits. At the ZBC, the national broadcaster, executives were earning similarly huge wages and taking out big loans, while the company was failing to pay workers or provide quality services. Mahachi’s own wages were in the region of more than $30,000 per month – for perspective compare this to the less than $500 average wage for ordinary employees.
Mahachi also wants to keep an off-road high-value council-issued vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser V8 vehicle but in addition, he also wants council to buy him a brand new Jeep Cherokee, and specifies the model, apparently an “Overland model” which is valued in the region of $50 000, which is probably a conservative figure. In addition, Mahachi wants the vehicles to be fully serviced by council.
He also says he was entitled to a Belvedere mansion during his tenure of office, which he never occupied. He says the council must now transfer it to him and not only that but it must also pay the Capital Gains Tax on it. He also wants a commercial stand that he is presently leasing, to be sold to him at 33 per cent of its value.
In addition, he wants 6 months’ fuel, newspaper supplies, medical aid and funeral cover. He also wants council to pay 3 months’ worth of fees for his two children.
These are just some of the demands that he has made. It is not just the audacity to make those demands but the shamelessness of it all that is galling, especially when one considers the circumstances in which they are being made.
Harare City Council has for a long time been struggling to deliver services to residents, even under his watch, as Town Clerk and therefore, as the CEO of council. Here is a man who has been at the helm of an organisation that has failed its core constituency, the residents, but is making heavy demands. The council cannot deliver water to some residents. It can’t collect rubbish off the streets. All of this has happened under his watch, yet he has the audacity to make these demands.
The demand for high-value vehicles is particularly ironic – this is from a council that, until a few months ago, had no functional fire engines until it received a donation from a Western country. This is the capital city of the country – relying on donated fire engines. Before then, when a fire engine was sent to douse the fire that killed for army commander, Retired General Solomon Mujuru in 2011, it arrived at the scene without any water. When another fire engine was despatched recently to put out a fire at businessman Philip Chiyangwa’s residence in Borrowdale, they used wooden ladders. It was almost comical.
Yet here is its chief executive, demanding as part of a golden handshake, a Toyota Land Cruiser and brand new Jeep Cherokee – not one but two high-value off-road vehicles. Of course, like all public officials and politicians, he wants off-road vehicles because they can’t stand the pot-holed roads around the city and country.
But where does he get the audacity to make such demands? Legal pedants will point to the law. They will say this is his contract and if his contract says so, then he is entitled to those demands, end of the matter. That may be so, but it totally misses the bigger picture, which includes public accountability and responsibility. Apart from this, it also illustrates a bigger problem, both in the private and public sectors.
In the debate that ensued from the recent landmark Supreme Court judgment that has led to the sacking of thousands of workers, those who supported it made at least one good point. It was that the judgment freed companies who were otherwise held at ransom by their senior executives, whose demands for retrenchment packages were often unreasonably high and had the potential to bankrupt companies.
In making their argument, however, they overestimated the importance of the judgment in the case of senior executives who are often protected by contracts as is the case with Mahachi. Senior executives enjoy the best of both worlds – in one sense they represent the employers against all other workers but in another sense they are employees just like other workers. This is why Mahachi can now re-cast himself as an employee of council, demanding protection like all other workers but with the advantage of a favourable contract of employment. The audacity to make these demands comes from the refuge provided by the contract of employment.
But the bigger problem is the gross disparity in pay and benefits between senior executives and ordinary workers both in the private and public sectors. Contrary to the view that ordinary workers overburden organisations with their small wages, it is usually the few executives at the top who earn astronomical wages and benefits that are out of sync with the state of their organisations. The demands that Mahachi is making are probably similar if not even less than the packages enjoyed by senior executives both in the private and public sectors. What appears abnormal and ridiculous to ordinary people is in fact normal and reasonable to senior executives. This is probably why Mahachi sees nothing abnormal with his demands. In the universe in which he lives, this is normal and acceptable.
So while we condemn and lambast Mahachi for his seemingly over-the-top demands, let’s not forget that the bigger picture here is a class issue. People in Mahachi’s class believe they are perfectly entitled to these packages, even if they are out of sync with and disproportionate to what ordinary workers earn. If there is a sense of entitlement and arrogance on Mahachi’s part, it is because the system created his type and there are many like him who share that view. If you look at the businesses that have suffered in recent years, it is unlikely that you will find a former senior executive who is suffering consequences of corporate bankruptcy. Most would have stashed away in off-shore accounts their huge wages and benefits, some of which would have been disguised as non-performing loans – they or their companies would have taken loans from their banks and companies, which they simply never paid back.
I started by referring to the statement by my African acquaintance who said Zimbabweans have an amazing capacity to take high levels nonsense from their politicians and public officers. It seems harsh but it also explains why people like Mahachi can make these ridiculous demands from suffering ratepayers without batting an eyelid. They know their people.
Harare does not generate a great deal of independent revenue and relies mostly on ratepayers. What Mahachi is demanding effectively comes from the ratepayers whose water-pipes and sewage facilities are bursting, whose bins remain uncollected and whose streets lost their lights ages ago. Harare residents are ever-complaining about poor service from council. Yet the man who presided over the executive arm of council has the audacity to make such astronomical demands. If Harare residents wait for the courts to make decisions, there will be only one winner and it won’t be them. It is Harare residents have to be angry enough to show that this is a non-starter; that failure cannot be rewarded with golden handshakes of this type.
Back in 2009, there was a huge storm in the UK when a former CEO of a major bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland left the failing bank with a huge golden handshake. RBS, was one of the victims of the financial crisis and the CEO, Sir Fred Goodwin, left in unceremonious circumstances. When it was discovered that his package included an annual pension of £703,000, there was a huge outcry, especially as the government had oved in to bail out the bank which was facing bankruptcy. In the end, the former CEO agreed to a huge cut in his annual pension.
The point here is it wasn’t that Sir Fred Goodwin was not legally entitled to his contractual pension but sufficient pressure was applied by taxpayers, labour unions, government and political actors to ensure that there was a reduction. In the end, he still walked away with millions, but at least a point had been made that it was morally outrageous to reward failure.
The situation over Mahachi is, in many way, similar. In making his demands he is pointing to a contract with the council. Legally, he is probably entitled to all or most of those things because that is probably what the contract says. Yet, this is a matter of public interest that goes far beyond contractual dimensions. If Harare residents are unhappy with these demands, it is up to them to demonstrate their outrage. If Harare residents do not believe in rewarding failure, it is they who must bring pressure upon the relevant actors.
In short, it is up to Harare residents to disprove my diplomatic acquaintance’s assessment that Zimbabweans are not angry enough and that they have an amazing capacity of tolerating nonsense.
waMagaisa
Editors: Like all articles on this website, this is not to be used without author’s permission and only then, to be used with following acknowledgement: This article was first published on www.alexmagaisa.com Follow on Twitter @wamagaisa Contact at wamagaisa@yahoo.co.uk
