Mzembi a ‘lone ranger’ battling to save Zim

Obituaries
One writer wrote in one weekly paper a beautiful piece published on Sunday August 3 2014.

One writer wrote in one weekly paper a beautiful piece published on Sunday August 3 2014.

Sunday Opinion with Pius Wakatama

The article featured Tourism minister Walter Mzembi and his view of Zimbabwe having a lot to benefit from religious tourism.

Mzembi believes that religious tourism can be a cash cow for bankrupt Zimbabwe. The minister told Parliament that of the world’s 1,1 billion tourist arrivals, 300 million are inspired to travel by spiritual or faith-based reasons.

He is of the view that Zimbabwe too, can have its fair share of the religious tourism cake if it liberalises its visa conditions a bit for such travellers.

The writer opened his article with Isaiah 60:11, the Bible verse which Mzembi uses when propounding his belief that religious tourism can bring economic relief to bankrupt Zimbabwe. It reads, “Keep thy gates open, do not close them during the day; do not close them during the night so that you may enjoy the wealth of the gentiles, with their kings in procession.”

It is not often that I agree with President Robert Mugabe on anything. One of those rare times was when he said Mzembi was one of his “best ministers”. Mzembi is just that; the best minister in the Zanu PF government.

He is a creative and hardworking young man with a lot of faith in Zimbabwe and the capabilities of its people. In terms of effort, the young man is head and shoulders above his rather mediocre Zanu PF ministerial colleagues.

He knows what he is supposed to do in order to play his part in bringing Zimbabwe out of its economic morass and he has left no stone unturned to do just that. Against all odds, last year he organised for Zimbabwe and Zambia to successfully co-host the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly held in Victoria Falls.

This indeed served to bring the world’s attention to Zimbabwe as a tourist destination. For his ambitious efforts, Mzembi has won numerous local and international awards.

He has also said that he will soon table, for regional support, his ambitious dream for Zimbabwe to possibly bid for the 2034 Fifa World Cup. Why not? The modern world was built by visionaries who saw beyond reality.

Recently, Mzembi was reported to have announced that the government is set to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the United States to promote tourism between the two countries.

Addressing journalists in his office, Mzembi said the MoU would twin the Victoria Falls and the Niagara Falls and help boost tourism inflows from the US.

He went on to say, “Statistics show that the US has the uppermost number of tourists who visit Zimbabwe, but the number is declining.

In 2012, the country received 50 060, but last year Zimbabwe received 45 496, which shows that there is a decrease in arrivals.” Mzembi added that the discussion between the US and Zimbabwe will promote culture marketing of products, training of personnel and cooperation between the two nations to promote trade and tourism.

Mzembi has tried his best in engaging Americans and other international governments, but all in vain. As was predictable, Mzembi finally realised that for tourist arrivals to increase, the country had to do much more than to just improve visa conditions. He then started to publicly point out a number of areas where Zimbabwe had to change.

However, he failed to get to the root of the problem, which is Zimbabwe’s poor image internationally. Image is the character or reputation of a person or thing as generally perceived.

Nobody wants to visit a country with a poor image and Zimbabwe has just that.

The image of any country is reflected from the very top office in the land to the lowest one.

What image is reflected by the highest office in Zimbabwe? It has recently been reported that Mugabe has been ranked among Sub-Saharan Africa’s 26 worst leaders in a poll released recently by Gallup, the leading American research organisation that studies approval rates for Presidents, world- wide. Who would be excited to leave their comfortable homes to visit a country whose President has such a poor international reputation?

Mugabe recently reiterated his policy, that Zimbabwe was no country for whites, especially where land was concerned, insisting that the few remaining white farmers must leave.

This was followed by the harassment, assault and eviction of the remaining white farmers including a double amputee on a wheelchair who is now homeless. What sane white man would like to come and spend, let alone invest money in a racist country like Zimbabwe where his own kith and kin are cruelly treated like this?

While all this was going on, other African leaders were getting ready to attend the US-African Heads Summit in Washington to discuss business between the US and Africa. Of course Mugabe was not invited to this important summit for apparent reasons. This is where Mzembi, as part of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe delegation, should have gone.

He surely would have been able to close tourism deals with his counterparts, including those from the rest of the continent. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe is no longer taken seriously by the United States and other western countries. Instead of “keeping the gates open so that we may enjoy the wealth of the gentiles”, as Mzembi’s Bible verse instructs, Mugabe and his clueless gang are busy closing them to the detriment of the people.

Instead of wisely enjoying the wealth of those who exploited us in the past, we are busy hindering them from working for us and from bringing their wealth to enjoy with us as our tourists.

Undaunted, Mzembi went ahead with what was so obvious to him. He stated very clearly that Zimbabwe must value property rights to ensure the country attracts more tourists. He also launched a National Tourism Policy aimed at attracting over US$5 billion in tourism receipts by 2020.

He said the country must work on its brand image within the next six years to boost arrivals.

Mzembi finally hit the nail on the head when he said a national rebranding exercise is what is required for Zimbabwe to become a meaningful and progressive part of today’s international community.

In this community, I don’t include such opportunistic countries like China and Russia but the democratic and humane international community of nations. The tragedy is that most of Mzembi’s colleagues, including Mugabe, are not on the same wave length with him. Most of them don’t even understand what he is talking about. Those who do understand are afraid of him because they have benefitted from what he is attacking.

One of Mzembi’s frustrations is that conservancies which once attracted rich game viewers and professional hunters, are being forcibly taken away from their owners by greedy and powerful chefs and others for unplanned human settlement. He is a lone ranger fighting what he sees as stupidity.

This is why today he is under fierce attack from his own Zanu PF colleagues and is now fighting for his political survival. Articles in the government controlled press have accused him of being a sell-out as well as calling him all manner of unflattering names.

What is sad is that the few leaders in Zanu PF who agree with Mzembi are too scared to stand up and be counted. Instead of working for the poor people of Zimbabwe, they are busy plotting and conniving to secure or to enhance their positions in Zanu PF.

Until politicians like Mzembi, from all political parties as well as civil society activists, take action to see that there is a genuine change of direction, according to the new Constitution, Zimbabwe is headed for disaster. He, who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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