THE Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association has announced that its members who had resumed duty on Monday will be withdrawing their services on Tuesday to join the rest of their counterparts who did not report for duty.
This makes a lot of sense. What is the point of going back to work if your pay does not cover even the bare essentials such as transport, food, etc.?
In Zimbabwe, we have a government that is arguing junior doctors, teachers, etc. to continue working because patients and student are “entitled to health care and education”.
So if doctors and teachers are not paid enough to cover their transport, food and other bare necessities to sustain life, common sense will tell you there will be no doctors in our hospitals and no teachers in our schools.
The irony is that Zimbabwe is not a poor nation. In 1980, when the country gained her independence it was a middle-income nation, with a robust national economy and all the potential to be the South Korea of Africa. 38 years of Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have destroyed the nation’s economy. Today, we are the poorest nation in Africa.
We have the few filthy rich ruling elite who live in their palatial mansions, with fleets of posh cars, have many multi-million dollar farms and other business interests, 45 gold watches, etc. They are renowned for the extravagant lifestyles. They are not particularly bothered that the country’s education and health services have all but collapse; they have stopped using the local schools and hospitals a long time ago.
The filthy rich few are but islands in a growing ocean expense of the millions living in abject poverty.
To accuse the junior doctors or the teachers of neglecting the patience and the students in pursuit of “their own advantage” as Adam Smith would put it is to miss the point completely. If these doctors and teachers had been after their own self-interest then they would have abandoned their posts a long time ago.
They are doing so now because they do not have the money to pay for their transport, they cannot work on an empty stomach, etc.
As much as some people would like to discuss Zimbabwe’s problems in terms of economic policies, resource management, etc. these will not be enough to solve our problems.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.” argued the great economist Adam Smith.
Adam Smith’s ideas are sound, still they would not solve Zimbabwe’s problems because our problems are not so much about sound economics but about the insatiable greed of the few ruling elite.
“It is not from the benevolence of the few filthy rich ruling elite that we expect our dinner, their greed is insatiable. They appeal to the junior doctor’s humanity to work for nothing in appalling conditions. Meanwhile, the ruling elite squander US$ 3 million sending a chef to Singapore for eye treatment!” to paraphrase Adam Smith.
“We, the people, should address ourselves not to the ruling elite’s humanity but to their selfishness and greed.
“Zimbabwe’s political system in which the ruling elite enjoy absolute power to rig elections and stay in power regardless of the democratic wish of the people is cancer killing the nation. Zanu PF thugs do not have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe; they usurped the people’s power and we must restore democratic accountability now before it is too late!”
In short, we should not blame the junior doctors or teacher for refusing to give of their services at great expense to themselves. We should blame the ruling elite for creaming off the nation’s wealth to pay for their extravagant lifestyles at the expense of the nation. It is the ruling elite’s fault that we are in this economic mess.
Our number one problem is one of bad governance. Mnangagwa and his junta will never admit that they have failed to govern our primary task are to make sure the people’s democratic right to have a meaningful say on who governs the nation is restored and respected!
they have no mandate to govern and they must go.
By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka
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