Unpacking devolution, the end of Bambazonke concept

THE concept of devolution that the country is pursuing has been lauded as the best development strategy that ensures equitable distribution of the national cake without hushed murmurs of dissatisfaction from some provinces that felt marginalised.

The previous political administration was reluctant to implement devolution, perhaps for reasons of political expediency choosing the Bambazonke way of doing things that did very little to either unite the State or develop it as certain patches were left isolated from the whole.

Bambazonke entails that everything is centralised to a particular place and in the concept of Zimbabwe, Bambazonke referred to the capital, Harare from where political, economic and social development has over the years revolved around and controlled.

And people from other provinces that were seemingly marginalised in their bitterness often referred to the capital as where their lives are run. But that is likely to end very soon if the spirit of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) is followed.

According to the TSP document the State is going to be reconstructed to represent a system where governance will be community-based and people-centred. The entry point for devolution is to empower provinces to drive local and national economic growth and development using their own factor endowments.

This, the TSP notes, represents a new governance dispensation where decentralisation becomes a key feature and strategy for fair and just governance. Fulfilment of decentralisation is going to be across the four dimensions, namely administrative, political, fiscal and market.

“The founding provisions of the Constitution enshrine and provide for giving powers of local governance to the people, enhancing their participation in making decisions on issues that affect them, and in the exercise of the powers of the State,” reads part of the TSP economic blueprint.

President Mnangagwa recently reaffirmed the Government’s commitment in implementing devolution and decentralisation in the running of national affairs as a strategy to revitalise the economy and improve the people’s standards of living. He said to reaffirm its commitment; Government allocated a total of $310m in the National budget towards devolution.

“As Government we recognise varied natural resource endowments in our respective provinces and that people in those provinces must benefit from the resources in their communities. Government guided by the party is putting in place the legislative framework to implement devolution. This is set to see the actualisation of the concept of provincial economies. The recently announced budget allocated a total of $310m dollars towards this programme,” said President Mnangagwa.

He said principally, his Government had taken a decision to implement the constitutional requirements of devolving and decentralising the running of the country’s affairs.

“This is one of the strategies to rebuild our economy through modernisation and industrialisation, the creation of decent jobs as well as ensuring broadbased empowerment in line with our vision to fulfil the spirit of our Constitution.”

He said the communities should remain mindful that the country was a unitary State with diverse cultures, languages, beliefs and religions.

“We must therefore use this concept for economic advancement and as a vehicle to propel development. Devolution must improve the quality of life of all our people in every corner of the country as we strive to become a middle-income economy by 2030,” said President Mnangagwa.

He said communities should therefore take this programme of devolved economic development as specifically for them as they would be given the power to control the resources that they own — a concept of bringing down development priority to the local communities so that they own development.

Under the TSP, Government envisages a transfer of some governmental authority and responsibilities to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities to communities in furtherance of their development and in the management of their own affairs.

In this regard, decision making and authority in the provision of most basic services will be delegated and decentralised to provincial and district levels. This will bring Government closer to communities, and make it more accessible, that way enhancing responsive, accountable and participatory governance over local development agendas.

Currently, centralised essential services which are said to be only readily obtainable in major urban centres include registration and issuance of birth and death registration certificates, passports, liquor licences, trading licences and mining claims registrations.

Political analyst Mr Jowere Mukusha

said the concept of devolution meant that provinces would enjoy more influence in decision making economically, politically and socially.

“Power in any form is a scarce commodity hence the devolution agenda inspired by President Mnangagwa gives people a feeling of decision making from a provincial level. Devolution attempts to reduce red tape and bureaucratic tendencies in all developmental facets, thus provinces are quite happy about the devolution agenda.

“Devolution enhances the African virtues of oneness and familihood for Nyerere (1968) that is the issue of Umojah and Ujamaa. The same spirit is buttressed by Mbiti (1989) resonating that, ‘I am because we are; since we are therefore I am’. The long and short about the devolution agenda is that we rule together thereby sharing the responsibilities of success and failure as communities,” said Mr Mukusha.

He added that communities would benefit from the natural endowments of their province rather than have them taken to the capital where they were value added and distributed often unequally from the national basket. This, he adds, will enable the establishment of new industries as well as employment creation catering more for the local people. Mr Mukusha said there were many calculated political and economic reasons for the delay in implementing devolution by the previous administration.

“Devolution may mean less power to control both the political and economic dynamics that has the potential to threaten the stability of the country. Another important reason is that devolution if not properly taught and managed may create tribalism and regionalism which are quite detrimental to societal cohesion, homogeneity and solidarity. I think this was one of the main reasons why the previous administration postponed the implementation of the devolution agenda, of course without forgetting the economic costs,” he said.

Another political analyst Mr Methuseli Moyo said devolution is going to make provinces benefit from relative autonomy on their localised need-based priorities as opposed to centralised and opaque planning and distribution of resources. He added that it (devolution) is going to push for the completion of so many projects since each province would get its own budget and decide which projects to give priority to. Mr Moyo said the excitement about devolution from the Southern parts of the country is because they believe they have suffered neglect and marginalisation and now see an opportunity to be at par with other provinces.

“The Southern region believes rightly or wrongly that it has been marginalised and devolution is here to put everybody at par,” he said.

Fiscally, the TSP notes, Treasury will reconfigure the national budget towards a spatially decentralised budgetary support, in order to underpin provincial and local authority investment and development master plans, co-ordinated by an inter-ministerial team chaired by Treasury and also comprising of the Ministry of Local Government and other ministries.

The objective of this is to make every province and local authority attractive for both local and foreign investment by ensuring ease of doing business and also lowering the costs of establishing business. Market wise, each province and local authority will transform itself into an investment and economic zone, with its own GDP, and with the capacity to venture, with consent from Central Government, overseas in its own right for FDI.

Hence, in line with Section 264 and 301 of the Constitution on devolution, Central Government will devolve more powers to provincial councils and local authorities that will craft provincial and local authority economic development plans underpinned by resource endowments in the province.

According to the TSP, provincial economic development plans will be characterised by extensive bottom-up consultations at village, ward, district and provincial levels. The consultations would include the private sector and development partners who are key in resource mobilisation and deployment in the planning process.

It is envisaged that Zimstat will undertake surveys that inform official National Accounts data compilation of extractions of resource endowments across Zimbabwe’s various regions, disaggregated by province and local Authority. This will underpin assessments of the various provinces’ and local authorities’ contributions to the economy’s overall GDP and revenue base.

Devolution of public administration therefore remains a Constitutional imperative that is designed to operationalise a decentralised governance and development planning framework and end the thought that power and economic decision making was primarily for Harare and Mashonaland provinces.

In this light, devolution is viewed as a panacea in the distribution of power in both the political and economic arenas in Zimbabwe. People had the feeling that everything was dictated to them by the northern region, an issue that devolution has corrected hence, the excitement that devolution is going to end the Bambazonke concept.