From the Diaspora into the frying pan

People thought that I has stopped contributing to my column in New Zimbabwe.com due in no small part to the howling critics that populate the comments section of that blog. We they were probably right. While trying to gauge my popularity, I made the mistake of perusing the opinions of the enlightened hordes whose singular preoccupation is to vent their spleen at anything that they disagree with. I was crushed.

Was I so vain by thinking that the world is full of nice people? I have never come across such a bunch of angry people anywhere. If we were to tap the negative vibes some of them generate, we are sure to get rid of the national power deficit at the flick of a switch. No need for the Chinese to construct their environmentally unfriendly power stations.

That reality check may have lasted this long, but there were extenuating factors that added to the enforced hiatus. I have discovered that if I were to allow myself to be controlled by someone else, then I would surely die of the misery some of our colleagues in the Diaspora suffer from. Please note that I said ‘some’. That is a heavily qualified statement lest the critics find fodder with which to construct their case.

Criticism is fine and welcome as long as it is constructive. So I won’t be Zanu PFish about it and settle for the gag or worse still…  Anyway, having rediscovered the fact that there are people out there who have chosen to be mean, I can also confirm that life can be unfair, sometimes. These two points were confirmed by my rather acrimonious exit from the land of the Batswana.

Botswana immigration office in Francistown

My exit from the land of the Khama was both acrimonious and embarrassing. I am bitter at the way I was treated by the authorities of that country, particularly the immigration section. For months on end, I found myself an unwilling client at their stuffy offices in Francistown as I sought to obtain a permit to operate my consultancy. I find it exceedingly embarrassing for a potential investor in both cash and kind to be queuing for service with aspiring maids and perspiring farm boys and girls. I am being realistic here and not pompous in any way.

 I now realise the utter stupidity to exercise patience in order for one to be insulted and be called a ‘Mokwerekwere’ which for the unititiated means 'a foreigner.'

It took Botswana authorities the best part of six months to deny me an investor’s permit with the claim that my business was ‘not viable.’ I will not bore you with the details, save to confirm what Zimbabweans have always known ukuthi abantu laba kabasithandi! (The Batswana don't like us.)

From the arid verges of the Kgalagadi desert, I returned home to Bulawayo in August to discover a city more dead than a cemetery in the North Pole. The first thing you hear when arriving back home from the Diaspora is to head north. That statement alone is very loaded. It tells you in the least number of words possible that the south of the country is dead economically unless you are into gold panning. Secondly, it points to where the money is to be made.

Bambazonke

So before my feet could touch the ground, I was off to the capital city, Harare, the bane of devolutionists. Those who know me well are privy to my opinions about this cosmopolitan Gomorrah. It’s a city that is so full of itself – kuwonererwa – to use the local parlance. Yet people there are under no pretence about why they are there – to make money and lots of it where possible.

So why blame me of all people, stripped to the bare bones and without a plan, for joining the money making trail to bambazonke? Admittedly, Harare takes on an enduring allure when dollar signs are embellished around its reputation for grabbing all that comes its way. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then why shouldn’t Mohammed go to the mountain?

Taking the cheapest steel-clad camel available, carrying the barest minimum in luggage, I found myself heading north to what my clansmen fondly refer to as eButshabi. The journey reminded me of the stark reality that is my beloved country Zimbabwe. Not that I regret being back home, far from it. It’s that there are some things that remain the same.

As we negotiated our way through no less than 20 roadblocks, I had a brilliant idea. Why can’t police checkpoints be declared a national heritage? That would turn them into tourist attractions in advance of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly to be hosted next year. We would make a killing.

Another stark reminder was the dingy state of the cities of Kadoma and Chegutu. If rumours of the dualisation of the highway are true, then these are two eyesores the new development can gladly bypass. Perhaps the only positive thing I observed on that journey which was littered with the sight of abandoned and unproductive commercial farms, was the fact that the road itself was being fixed.

If there is one thing that gives an impression that things are indeed looking up, it’s the sight of heavy construction equipment and the smell of fresh asphalt. And also that all the food outlets, except those in Kadoma and Chegutu of course, looked neat, no chance of one catching cholera or typhoid there!

Arriving in Harare was a shock. There seems to be more cars than people and all of them are rushing somewhere. Granted that Harare has always been associated with speed, and coming from a leisurely paced country like Botswana one finds the existence in the capital hair raising. I was swept by the tide when I got there and I just had to hang on to my hat.

As I shook off the effects of my ‘Themba comes to the city’ experience, I soon got into the scheme of things. Wheeling and dealing is the pulse of Harare. Decision makers meet the shady characters downtown. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell which is which. The story of survival in bambazonke is one for another day. At this juncture all I can say is, with a hint of sarcasm, it’s good to be back home.

Pause for Thought: Domestos is a locally available brand of toilet cleaner. They are being touted as the official sponsors of the World Toilet Summit. My son Bongani wonders what will be discussed at a world toilet summit. Food for thought!

Police roadblocks are a pain

The carnage on Zimbabwe’s roads hit the headlines once again and true to form the statistics were nothing short of scary. However, sure to steal the thunder from road fatalities were the number of road blocks on the highways. As Zimbabweans in the nearby diaspora travelled home for the long holiday, they did so in fear and trepidation, not of carjacking or thugs, but of the police.

Cartoon in NewsDay

They ran the gauntlet of an average of one roadblock for every twenty kilometres. From Plumtree border post to Bulawayo we ran into no less than 5 roadblocks and that is a stretch of 100 kilometres. If the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti’s claims are anything to go by motorists on a normal day have encountered 18 roadblocks between Harare and Bulawayo and 9 between Harare and Marondera. Seven roadblocks in the Highlands-Chisipite area alone! We leave the Beitbridge to Bulawayo or Harare highway to your own imagination.

It is well understood that towards the holidays it has become necessary for the police to conduct special operations as way of reducing accidents and save life and limb. But the above statistics tell a numbing story. Which begs a question that has been thrown around by all and sundry; Is Zimbabwe a police state?

This has been vociferously denied by the police themselves whose chief is in his element telling people, particularly pesky politicians where to get off. According to Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, the police are not obliged to reveal to the public why, when, where and how they conduct their operations for obvious security related reasons. That is clearly understood.

But what really gets at motorists and their passengers alike is the ‘malicious overzealousness’ displayed by traffic police. This is particularly noticeable directly after a public outcry about their conduct or when stung by criticism during parliamentary debates, cabinets meetings or the media.

Even the brazenly verbose Deputy Prime Minister Prof AGO Mutambara had very few kind words for what he said was a force that bred corruption through the use of roadblocks as ‘fundraising methods.’ Minister Biti weighed in by saying that roadblocks had become the ATMs (Automated Teller machines) of certain members of society.

What members of the public argue against is whether the number of roadblocks has led to a corresponding decrease in crime or accidents for that matter. The evidence on the ground glaringly shows that this is not the case.

Roadblocks by their very nature are normally set up in times of crisis, an unstable condition that is supposed to be temporary. So road blocks at Easter or other holidays could be justified. Temporary is the opposite of permanent by the way.

Roadblocks, economists will tell you, are the worst form of crime prevention in as far as the free flow of traffic, passengers and goods are concerned. Perhaps we need some research to determine the amount of down-time lost to the economy through the sometimes unnecessary delays at these barricades. Quantified, the money lost to the fiscus must be phenomenal. And that is where the police force is supposed to be getting paid from.

If commuters travelling from Luveve or Chitungwiza to the city centres of Bulawayo and Harare respectively were to be stopped at least 5 roadblocks, how much of production time would be lost even if they were vendors for argument’s sake? And to think that the police would be the first to complain that their budget allocation is inadequate! It’s because they do not see the link between the two or they simply refuse to.

That aside, the gripe with traffic police is why they intensify operations so soon after constructive criticism? If a very public institution like the police are above the oversight of parliament which represents members of the public, they who do they answer to, if we were to ask a stupid question.

The increase in the number of roadblocks has struck terror on drivers of foreign registered vehicles in particular in that they have become sitting ducks or moving targets for traffic cops. Is it because they are so eager to avoid the inconvenience of being delayed that they are wont to quickly part with all manner of bribes?

‘Money for a coke’ has become the slogan even though the said beverage costs just a dollar unless one is expected to buy the entire police force. This should worry the Ministers of Tourism and Foreign Affairs because among the worst verdicts about Zimbabwean hospitality emanates from the mistreatment of tourists at roadblocks that, for some sadistic reason, are strategically located near tourist resorts.

So much to the extent that an Australian travel warning on Zimbabwe reads thus: ‘Roadblocks are very common throughout Zimbabwe and can appear with little warning.’

One tourist even wrote on his blog about how the highlight of his long planned trip to Zimbabwe were the numerous roadblocks he encountered where the reception ranged from disarmingly polite to downright rude. In fact, so polite was one officer that after fleecing the bemused visitor of $20 for missing reflectors and detaining him for the best of 30 minutes was told to ‘have a pleasant stay.’

Granted that, as police spokesman James Sabao says, police are not violating the civil rights of members of the public because ‘the law allows them to do so’ doesn’t it follow then that the police should give due respect to the mandate of MPs to change a patently bad law and so debate it openly without being called all sorts of names?

A point of contention has always been the police insisting that motorists pay fines on the spot. This lands credence to stories of officers going on a fishing expedition around the car looking for an offence to charge the driver for. Many a driver has spoken of a police officer’s ‘Aha!’ moment when he or she would have eventually discovered something amiss with a vehicle.

Like the frequent cases of foreign vehicles without front white reflectors that seem to be mandatory in Zimbabwe alone and not in other SADC countries. Instead of being given a warning and a chance to purchase the said reflectors, they are ordered to pay a fine on the spot. We eagerly await the standardisation of traffic rules in the region.

As if to emolliate the bad publicity those roadblocks have generated, we have encountered officers who are so professional as to be insidious in their efficiency. Like when one is instructed, albeit very politely, to ‘pull your car off the road and await an officer who will DEAL with you.’ That expression alone has so many connotations and none of them are positive.

Psychologically this is intended to reduce the driver to ground level from which you painstakingly work yourself from with a mix of pampering (as in saluting ‘makadini chef?’) to downright bribery. I agree that it takes two for corruption to take place but the way one is manoeuvred into bribing an officer leaves one without any doubt whatsoever what the ‘deal’ is.

On another note, have you noticed that when the police react to accusations of over-handedness on the roads they seem to equate the behaviour of every driver to that of commuter taxi drivers? That is where part of the problem lies. Commuter taxi drivers are a breed on their own and if you ask me they deserve everything that is coming to them.

We all know that commuter taxi drivers are a law unto themselves. Their malcontent behaviour is legendary. No one in his right senses should have any sympathy for a driver who treats his passengers the same way as he would a load of pumpkins. Police should desist painting every driver with the same brush, to use their language.

If it is reducing impunity on the roads that the police are in intent on doing then why not take their fight to the commuter bus ranks where the real purveyors of the traffic jungle prowl? It makes sense doesn’t it?

The tact of distinguishing between two distinctly divergent types of drivers will reduce the agony a lot of them will have to endure. It’s like the incident of a high court judge who was roundly humiliated by a traffic cop still wet behind the ears who said, rather unflatteringly, ‘Kana urimu-Benz unofunga kuti unoshamisira?’ (Do you think you are great just because you are driving a Mercedes Benz?)

It took the alertness of a nearby senior officer and profuse grovelling on the part of the said constable to rescue an embarrassing situation.

While we are constantly reminded by police spokespersons that those who observed the law have nothing to fear and defective vehicles are cleared off the roads, then why should reasonably sound vehicles endure the phalanx of roadblocks still? Is this not an indication that roadblocks are not an effective deterrent?

As Minister Biti correctly pointed out, the positioning of some of these check points defies logic. We can only speculate that the areas with the highest concentration of roadblocks are those that have drivers rich enough to shower cops with monetary confetti.

Another thing, can the officers ‘soliciting and collecting bribes’ please do it more discreetly. You never know who is watching or taking pictures in these days of tabloid and yellow journalism.

There now is a website that identifies places where bribes are taken by density and such spots are then geo-tagged and labelled according to the amount and the government department affected. The novel idea is called ‘Bribespot’http://www.bribespot.com and anyone with an android mobile phone for now can send information to the site via an application or app.

As a parting shot there is a joke that used to do the rounds that goes something like: Question: What is the difference between a spot fine and a bribe? Answer: You get an ‘admission of guilt’ for one and ‘guilt of commission’ for the other!

Zimbabweans should remember Black Friday (Part Two)

"Friday 14 November, 1997 was the day the Zimbabwe dollar died. That day may not signify anything to many. Yet for Zimbabweans worldwide it was the day their currency lost value so fast that that there was little time for the ink to dry on the notes. In fact on that very day very few took any notice that something was amiss. Citizens went about their business totally oblivious of what was happening." 

Here we continue from where we left off....

Zimbabweans were on the verge of unprecedented changes to their way of life. It was not lost on them that November was the month when salary and wage bonuses were usually paid. The country was one of the few in which a bonus was a right and not a privilege.

The prospect of spending a black Christmas loomed large and real.  The banks had no money and the expression, ‘as safe as a bank’ took a whole new meaning.

That particular crisis came and went its way. But things were never the same after that. We never imagined that it would get worse. Zimbabweans would fix things. If Plan B failed, surely there would always be Plan C, D, E, F or even Plan Z! Yet when the bonus finally came, they could hardly afford a loaf of bread.

The January disease of 1998 was the harshest because it extended for the rest of the year. Things slid much faster at the turn of the century climaxing in 2008. Zimbabweans were on the verge of grazing on grass, with supermarkets bare and most people reduced to a Stone Age life of hunting and gathering. Zimbabwe had not only hit rock bottom, it had started to dig.

And yet they seem to have forgotten so easily how they managed to rise from the dead. The Global Political Agreement that was the result of compromise between the contending political parties was a Godsend. It gave Zimbabweans and the country’s comatose economy a lifeline. Lest we forget where the country had been people have to accept that things are far from normal.

But the environment has been stable enough for some to begin clamoring for elections in the belief that polls will fix things. There are those that believe that it is suicidal for people to believe that the mere introduction of new dispensation will usher in a period of economic renewal. Donors are expected to come falling over each other wave a magic wand that will bring billions and create jobs.

Will the prodigal sons and daughters come pouring from all corners of the globe? They won’t just come back that easily without hard and fast guarantees.

The pessimists implore that the daydreaming should stop. No magic wand that will ‘fix’ things they say. Zimbabweans at home and abroad should accept that things have irrevocably changed and can’t be taken back to a golden era that is long gone. Zimbabwe’s re-admission into the family of nations is likely to expose it to the nasty side of globalization.

The see-saw recession that is chewing up weak European economies is a threat to recovery. And there is the glaring possibility of the World Bank and IMF force feeding Zimbabwe a cocktail of bitter fiscal medicine as a condition for much needed debt relief.

The country’s much touted natural resources could have been mortgaged to the Chinese say analysts. Record breaking diamond finds in the Marange area have turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing.  Only a seismic shift in government policy will compensate for the harm done by politically motivated land redistribution and indigenization.

Was it not Kwame Nkrumah who once said ‘See ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you.’  The political kingdom came in 1980 but it was downhill from then on. Nkrumah could be turning in his grave or the best perhaps, is yet to come. That is if one is an optimist and as long as Zimbabweans do not forget the experiences of the recent past.

Zimbabweans should remember 'Black Friday' (Part One)

Friday 14 November, 1997 was the day the Zimbabwe dollar died. That day may not signify anything to many. Yet for Zimbabweans worldwide it was the day their currency lost value so fast that that there was little time for the ink to dry on the notes. In fact on that very day very few took any notice that something was amiss. Citizens went about their business totally oblivious of what was happening.

If the truth be told, what made the headline news was a two headed snake that had been discovered in some office. In a part of Africa given to superstition, one would have speculated that this was an omen, the harbinger of doom for the ‘Zim-Kwacha’ that lost a record 71.5% against the US dollar starting a series of cataclysmic events that culminated in the printing of a One hundred trillion dollar note more than a decade later in 2009.

The ground breaking 100 trillion note (Pic: ebay.com)

 It was incredible and it read more like a joke. However, millions of Zimbabweans discovered it wasn’t when they went to their banks to withdraw money from their accounts. Let us stop here and rewind a bit.

The real causes of Black Friday, as it came to be known, pointed straight at the door of government. As with most of the ruling party’s campaign gimmicks, that have proven to be destructive, President Robert Mugabe decided to award unbudgeted payments to war veterans of the liberation struggle. Secondly, the country became involved in a very costly civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back when in direct reaction to fiscal irresponsibility, multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund cut the apron strings leaving Zimbabwe’s economy on an unprecedented free-fall.

An ominous sign, if one would call it that, was the gradual appearance of women from the apostolic faith identifiable by their white frocks and head scarves in the streets of Harare and Bulawayo and dealing in foreign currency. It should be noted that prior to this the same women were known more for selling mangoes and other tropical fruit than hard currency.

Soon an activity that was exclusively conducted in the secure air conditioned chambers of commercial banks had been moved lock, stock and barrel into the crowded and littered streets where pound sterling, United States dollars, South African rand and Botswana pula was bartered and sold the same way they would roasted groundnuts.

Shockingly, the authorities looked aside as the mass of commercial banks and foreign exchange bureaus, registered by a government bitten by the so-called indigenisation bug, legitimised the street trade by shunting the little that was trickling into the banking system into the informal system. Companies joined in the fray speculating and playing around with the exchange rate to gain supra profits.

As this was happening, ordinary Zimbabweans lulled into a sense of false security, crowded the pubs and churches in veneration of their gods. That was until they stopped by the banks to withdraw their hard earned money. The shock of being informed by trusted custodians of their accounts that ‘in principle’ there was something in them but in reality could not withdraw was hard to bear.

A bank queue in Masvingo March 2012 (zimbabwemetro.com)

There simply was no warning at all nor was there the rare opportunity to run on the banks like once occurred in Argentina. A free for all that would clean the vaults out by the lucky ones perhaps. Not in this case. Clients were confronted with a sign on the door informing them that there would be no withdrawals ‘until further notice.’

One is reminded of one of those business studies or commerce lessons where students were warned about the perils of keeping money under a stone, in a tin in the garden or under the pillow.

There even was a story doing the rounds of a bank robber who buried his loot in the bush before he was arrested and jailed for his crime. When he had done his time ten years later he was shocked to find a sprawling residential suburb on the spot where he had stashed it. ‘It was here!’ he tried to tell bemused passers-by to no avail. Now the joke was on them.

How they wished they had ignored that advice. Unlike the typical of African economies, that tore the economic form book to pieces, Zimbabwe was about to rewrite it.

(To be continued)

Read my lips: The newspaper is going nowhere

I just read an article that says that the writing is on the wall for newspapers in Zimbabwe. The writer quotes statistics released by the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (Zamps). The reason given is that they are slow in waking up to the reality that is the internet. Online publications are becoming the in thing and newspapers are headed for the dustbin.

The survey results showed that print news readership in Zimbabwe has started to decline. 

‘Newspapers will not die anytime soon. No. Total death (sic) may not even happen, but the media business has been heavily disrupted and the effects are starting to be felt here,’ writes L.S.M Kabweza.

Newspapers will not die for the simple reason that in Zimbabwe, it has become such an essential part of our lives. We know that the main use of newspaper is to provide news, but it can do much more. For starters, everyone will attest to newspaper’s wrapping qualities. One of Britain’s long held traditions is that of wrapping fish and chips in the day’s tabloid issue.

We are not at liberty to discuss the hygienic demerits of doing so but where we come from particularly were plastic has no reach, and is expensive, newspaper can wrap anything from tomatoes to traditional medicine. It’s not criminal as far as we know to wrap vuka vuka (aphrodisiac) in a copy of the Herald. 

The Herald newspaper (Google Image)

How does the man of the house escape Sunday detention after a hard night out with the boys? He pretends to go out to buy a newspaper! He has not concocted a story to escape the clutches of a visibly angry wife, though of course returning 12 hours later with torn copy smeared with fat from the barbecue at the club will not win him any points on the domestic front.

Evidently a few pages of the least popular section of the newspaper would be missing. Paper has to be used to start up the fire that will get the braai or shisa nyama going. You don’t need the skills of a steam train driver to do that.

When Sipho, the boy from next door, for some odd reason decides to stage a mini version of the Africa Cup of Nations in your yard with the rest of the neighbourhood, what does he use for raw material for his version of the Jabulani, newspaper and a plastic bag of course. Most of the soccer greats past and present graduated from the street-paper-ball academy.

Shisa Nyama Botswana style (Own collection)

Never mind that the ‘Jabulani’ turns into the ‘Balekani’ (run away) when one of the more skilful of the boys executes a spectacular volley à la Messi – in the direction of your window. We are not going to embarrass you by describing how you chase the retinue down the street failing to catch a single of them. But rather how you find a newspaper coming handy in providing permanent cover over the gaping hole against the elements.

It is a fact that for a long time tissue paper was beyond the reach of many and still does, especially when you are found having to choose between mathumbu (cheap tripe) and tissue. Though many of us will not openly admit it, newspaper becomes a logical alternative. It serves a dual function. There is the aspect of catching up with news stories that you missed while answering the call of nature.

Then there is what we will call the ‘utility’ aspect even though the traction of newspaper has always been in doubt when it comes to wiping the nether end. This does not become an issue when no better alternative can be found in the vicinity. Leaves and maize cobs have been found to be highly unsuitable even in times of desperation.

A word of caution though having worked for the municipality, you should not be surprised if the sewer pipes in the vicinity decide to rebel and regurgitate their contents into your yard. These are some of the dire consequences for your being a bit on the thrift side of things. City health officials will not be pleased and don’t make things worse by complaining that it’s their job to clean up your mess.

Clever quips like when you say to them, ‘At least you are one group of workers who need not worry about retrenchment,’ is inadvisable. For some unknown reason cleaning sewerage is known to induce severe bouts of violent behavior in those employed to undertake this unfortunate task, even though they are paid overtime doing it.

Google Images

There is a darker side to the use of newspaper besides the intended purpose. It would seem that carrying a newspaper gives a false impression of dignity. It explains why pickpockets and other career crooks carry newspapers as a form of diversion. 

They are hiding their criminal intentions behind your favorite broadsheet or business paper. Carrying any of the tabloids would not do since they are just as sleazy. I am yet to see one of these hoodlums carrying a comic magazine, novel or the Holy Bible for that matter.

There are there equally diabolical uses like those con artists who have fooled members of the public (to use the police’s well-worn cliché) into believing that they can make their money multiply. Instead, they are left clutching bundles of newspaper every time. This trick has been used to dupe people since the days of the federation and yet they never seem to learn.

As much as we extoll the virtues of newspapers when starting a fire, arsonists also find a newspaper’s incendiary qualities very ideal. It covers their tracks especially when the house they are torching has stacks and stacks of newspaper that never gets to be used even when the option to sell to recycling companies can raise those desperately needed dollars.

There are many more uses of a newspaper that can one can identify like using them as an umbrella when caught out in a rain storm or on a particularly hot day or stuff hats, leather bags and shoes to keep their shape, make paper planes and provide excuses for husbands not to be disturbed. For this reason newspapers have become an institution.

Good habit or bad? (The Guardian)

The newspaper is unlikely to disappear from the street corner or from the loo for that matter, whether for utility or entertainment. I can’t for the death of me imagine using an Apple’s iPad to wipe my behind no matter what the name of the contraption or that of software misleadingly implies. 

Words that could bamboozle you:

vuka vuka - a traditional aphrodisiac that is sold in powder form and can be added to soup, traditional beer or taken neat if you are brave enough, an hour before the action.

Jabulani - the name given to the specially designed soccer ball used in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Its aerodynamic qualities eluded many a goalkeeper.

 Messi - a short Argentinian soccer player, now the richest in the world, who turns out for Barcelona who virtually can't be marked and scores at will. Short of shooting him he is unstoppable.

amathumbu (ah-mah-too-mboo) - tripe, a delicacy among our countrymen yet sometimes associated with poverty because its supposed to be a cheap relish. I said 'supposed' to be.

braai/shisa nyama - the Afrikaans/Zulu name for a barbecue. South Africa has declared it a heritage tourist attraction and the last day of the working week has been set aside as Braai Friday. Only the South Africans can do this...

iPad - Apple computer company's iconic tablet computer that has left competition in its class in the dust. A stroke of genius from the late CEO Steve Jobs.

Why your doctor could be dangerous

Dr Vernon Coleman is a medical doctor with an attitude. He wrote the book ‘How to stop your doctor killing you.’ That should give you an idea of what kind of person he is. He holds very strong views on the medical profession, vaccines, government and politicians. He is of the opinion that anything that the government organizes is required to be inefficient, uncaring and incompetently run.

Coleman qualified as a doctor in 1970 and worked as a GP for 10 years in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. He quit the profession more than 20 years ago because he wanted to try and change the world. ‘You can’t do that working inside the system,’ he says.

The controversial author believes that the medical profession in its present state has become a danger to mankind. 

“Which of these people do you think poses the greatest threat to your life: a burglar, a mugger, a drunken driver, a drug-crazed lunatic or a temporarily insane relative running amok with a sharp knife?” he asks.

It's none of them. The person most likely to kill you, Coleman says, is your doctor.

He makes a shocking claim, at least to the profession itself, that a staggering amount of evidence to show that modern western doctors, equipped with fancy drugs, exotic forms of surgery and impressive sounding radiotherapy techniques, are ranked alongside cancer, heart disease and stroke as major killers.

He could have coined the proverb which says: A young doctor means a new graveyard had it not been attributed to the Germans. An opponent of a national health system, Coleman believes that this has stolen the intimacy and privacy of the doctor-client relationship and not only made it public, but patently dangerous to the patient. 

Coleman, a popular columnist and author of more than 100 books goes against the medical grain by informing his readers that at least two thirds of all tests and investigations ordered by doctors and cost patients a fortune are useless. Now there goes the analytical laboratory business out of the window.

For example, he says, one survey showed that the routine examination of blood and urine contributes to only one per cent of diagnoses made. This reminds me of the case of a business partner who after a car accident went for a battery of tests that came out with negative result implying that his injuries were not that serious. That was until exactly three months later when another practitioner accidentally discovered a life threatening pulmonary embolism that was a direct result of the accident.

So why does the doctor order these tests even if they were useless? Dr Coleman man says that it’s because doctors are trained that way. Young and newly qualified doctors are encouraged by consultants to order all available tests perhaps to keep the laboratories in business, a case one hand washing the other. Little thought is given to the costs of all these tests to the patient.

Secondly, doctors order tests in order to impress their patients, colleagues, students and, of course, themselves, Coleman says. 

Thirdly, doctors frequently order unnecessary tests because they are planning to write papers for medical journals and they need lots of data to fill up the pages and make themselves look clever. Lastly, tests are done to protect doctors from litigation or possible accusations of negligence.

The moral is simple, Dr Coleman says, if your doctor arranges for tests to be done, ask him or her if they are really necessary. If the answer is no, then what is the point?

You can read more of Vernon Coleman’s opinions about anything and everything on his website http://www.vernoncoleman.com

Zimbabwe going down the drain... again?

Ostriches can't fly but so does Air Zimbabwe

There are some of us who have entered 2012 with a sense of trepidation. They believe this is the year when a decadent earth will collapse into itself. I predicted the same for Zanu PF, but Mother Earth? The bible says no one knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come.

For the time being one should live each moment to the full and do good for fellow mankind. Don’t listen to those who are creating a multi-billion dollar industry out of scaring people. There even is a movie entitled “2012” that graphically portrays the destruction of the world as we know it. It relives mankind’s worst fears…earthquakes, floods, fires, the works. But then I ask, what’s new? We already have a fair share of death and destruction… most of it man-made. Haven't we seen it all.

Mankind has become suicidal. We seem to have adopted the motto ‘Live today as if there is no tomorrow.’ To borrow Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono’s favourite cliché: Guess what; there is a tomorrow that not only we can look forward to, but have a duty to protect for future generations to come.

There are a lot of things that we will never understand. If we knew all life’s secrets, we would hasten the end of the world egoistic as we are. We are so destructively selfish that we do not care as to what our actions would lead to as long as we believe we are not on the receiving end. Take the fact that God endowed Zimbabwe with unfathomable mineral riches. Minerals that would easily take the country out of the rut it is in if the revenue were properly channelled to the government. We are assuming here that it would be secure there than in someone else’s pocket.

Yet we are robbed blind by a few self-centred individuals whose preoccupation is to wallow in the belief that we owe them a living. We marvel at their ill-gotten riches that they flaunt while announcing to all and sundry that ‘they were not born poor!’ There is nothing more traitorous than for such people to personalise state resources while they perpetuate the crisis in order to cover up for their travesty.

Zimbabwe is in trouble as a country because there are those whose very existence is dependent on the status quo remaining what it is. Where there is chaos they will thrive. There are things happening in this country that defy logic. Air Zimbabwe, a pale shadow of its former self is barely gasping yet a basic knowledge of economics tells us that it should have been sold.

Those who defend its existence claiming that this would be hawking the family jewels have a crooked definition of the world jewel. The national airline, or what is left of it, has gone way below the status of a rural chicken bus.

It remains a mystery why none of their planes has ever dropped out of the sky. Is it because of the fact that it takes 120 people to service a single Air Zimbabwe plane? I bet you one of these expert’s function is to blow cockroaches out of the aircraft’s avionics. Aren’t we just embarrassed that the South African Taxi Association has managed, or is about to launch an airline of their own?

Our only consolation, perhaps, is that at its worst, the airline came short of allowing passengers to enter the cabin with goats, chickens and bags of grain like used to happen in West Africa is those days of yore. Air Zimbabwe has become a metaphor for failure and like the dodo, a bird that could not fly, it will surely become extinct.

From the mid-eighties Zimbabwe had perfected the knack for creating monstrosities in the name of state enterprise even where they were not needed. Someone thought of another scheme to siphon state funds in the mould of NOCZIM, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe. Enter the Zimbabwe National Road Agency, ZINARA, which is supposed to construct and maintain the nation’s roads, a misnomer by any definition.

What roads? - would be a good question to ask. Anyone who has driven on the roads in Zimbabwe will tell you that they are arguably the worst. In some parts of the country, the roads are simply impassable, in some, they no longer exist. A giraffe is said to have disappeared into one drum-hole. It becomes something of a national crisis if the highways become gullies and are evidently the cause of numerous fatalities. It then begs the question: what the heck is ZINARA doing?

There was a time when the mere existence of a ministry of roads and transport was enough to look after our roads. Now where was the logic of creating a whole new entity whose first act is to acquire a shiny fleet of vehicles for the executives? This is all before we could smell bitumen.

The tolls that are levied on the highways by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, ZIMRA, are supposed be going into the coffers of ZINARA to pay for fixing the roads. The only time when the public knew anything about revenue from toll gates was when ZIMRA employees tasked with collecting the toll fees were caught with their hands in the till and had managed to divert more than a million dollars into their pockets. A MILLION DOLLARS! You can feed a whole province with that kind of money.

In the midst of it all ZINARA adds ore to the confusion by declaring that they were blacklisting a number of local authorities for the abuse of the so-called Road Fund. Now where is the accountability or transparency in all this? Why is it that all we hear about does not directly translate into safe and sound roads that we are supposed to be paying for through road levies and toll fees?

One is often reminded of another miscreation, the National Oil Corporation of Zimbabwe, NOCZIM, which despite clear evidence that we have not yet struck oil, was shoved down our throats. NOCZIM had the dubious distinction of creating one of the most devastating fuel shortages this country has ever experienced before it was embarrassingly terminated. The parastatal proved to be the most blatant siphoning of state resources into the pockets of a few.

At the height of the shortages, panic turned into desperation as very prominent politicians were dispatched to the mountains to seek divine intervention of a traditional kind. If the images of shoeless leaders witnessing pure diesel gushing from a rock that are awash in the blogosphere are any accurate, then it explains why Zimbabwe is in the mess it is in.

And to add to the diversion, has the role of Zimbabwe Republic Police, ZRP's traffic cops been amended to include the mandatory collection of spot fines on the roads? Is it true that traffic police have each been given a daily target to collect from errant motorists? If it is then one can see why Zimbabwe has the highest number of road blocks per kilometre on the planet. Did I mention that they were also corrupt?

Just come to think of it, all these entities with wierd acronyms - ZINARA, ZRP,ZIMRA, NOCZIM,ZANU-PF, AIR-ZIM - are giving us nothing but nasty indigestion.Was just saying.