ARE WE SEEING LAND REFORM REVERSAL IN ZIMBABWE?

In April 2000, I joined American insurer, AIG Zimbabwe Ltd in the farming claims department, less than two months before Robert Mugabe’s government had lost the constitutional referendum by 45% to 55% votes. I would have a front row seat in the chaos that followed the chaotic land reform. Many people do not know that Mugabe was forced by civil society in Zimbabwe to even embark on the constitution making position as he was content with the amended Lancaster House Constitution. I was there on a Saturday in 1998 when civil society in Zimbabwe came together at the Great Hall at the University of Zimbabwe campus to launch National Constitutional Assembly (NCA).

I remember that day, some of us who didn’t have cars were given free transport by Zimbabwe Council of Churches from town to Mount Pleasant and back to Harare CBD in their Toyota Coaster Minibuses. Speaker after speaker bemoaned the heavily amended Lancaster House Constitution as the source of our problems. We breaked for lunch into the university dining to this scrumptious meal of mainly chicken and this was quite handy for me as I was still a bachelor. We were told that Dr Edison Zvobgo then Zanu-PF secretary for legal affairs would address us that afternoon and he did not come. Morgan Tsvangirai was unanimously elected as the first leader of NCA. The following year, I also attended the launch of MDC at Rufaro Stadium in September 1999 where Tsvangirai was elected as president and Gibson Sibanda as his deputy.

Mugabe would later constitute the Constitutional Commission of Zimbabwe led by the then Judge President of the high court, Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku. The commission comprised all members of parliament who were almost all Zanu-PF members as well as some of the civil society members such as Lupi Mushayakarara and Professor Jonathan Moyo among others. I remember Chidyausiku apologising for a “moment of weakness” involving a fellow female commissioner. Lupi would later resign from the commission, I used to attend seminars organised by Lupi at Oasis Cresta Hotel that lady was fearless. I always warn people about trusting Jonathan Moyo in my view the man doesn’t have principles.

The consensus from those of us in NCA and MDC was that the draft constitution didn’t reflect the views of people and we resolved to vote NO. Mugabe decided to put a sweetener on the draft constitution in the form of expropriation of land without compensation. Land is an emotional issue in Africa. Our villages of Bokwe and Mugomeza in Murehwa where my mother and father come from respectively bordered the white commercial farmer. I never liked the way farmers treated villagers and their farm workers. Less than 2kms from our house in Yellow City Township in Marondera we had the first farm. I would study in the bush next to the farm but I never dared cross into the farmer’s farm as I knew the consequences. A few white farmers were prosperous and owned all this land whilst the majority of us natives leaved in squalor. I still voted NO because I knew Robert Mugabe was not being sincere and we needed new leadership.

After Mugabe lost the referendum in February 2000, in June 2000 we were going to have parliamentary elections and Zanu-PF faced defeat. Mugabe’s government went ahead and amended the constitution to expropriate land without compensation even though we had voted NO. Another law was passed to take away citizenship and the right to vote for people with foreign parentage. What this move did was was to remove from voters roll whites and blacks most of whom had come from Malawi, Mozambique and a few from Zambia. Overnight hundred of thousands Zimbabweans became stateless😢 hey Zanu-PF is evil guys.

There was farm invasions throughout Zimbabwe and there was violence against white farmers, black farmers not sympathetic to government and farm workers. Some farmers were murdered as well as their farm workers. No one was prosecuted for all these murders. Property on the farms was stolen and a lot of farm houses were burnt. The police were powerless to do anything. Farm invasions became a political issue that was too hot to handle for the police. Farmers approached courts and the police refused to enforce the court orders. Eventually Patrick Chinamasa then Zimbabwe’s Minister of Justice forced Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay from office and his replacement was the pliant Justice Chidyausiku ahead of more experienced Supreme Court judges such as the fiercely independent Wilson Sandura. Chidyausiku’s Supreme Court eventually reversed these rulings in favour of the Zanu-PF government.

My mother informed me that her cousin sekuru Givemore Muwoni Katsande had been arrested for murder after he had led war veterans at a farm belonging to prominent farmer Mr Ian Kay who was also an MDC supporter. Sekuru Katsande died on death row waiting for Mugabe’s pardon. I would stumble on the assessment report in the office as we insured the farm. No one in the office knew that I was related to Sekuru Katsande. What happened is that the farmer had called in the police again after more violence at the farm. Mr Ian Kay was critically injured on that day. A police constable had responded and he came wearing his home clothes and tried to restrain war veterans. I don’t know if Sekuru Katsande didn’t know that he was a police officer and he had proceeded to shoot the police officer and he died. I am not sure if he had killed a farm worker or the farmer if he would have been arrested? Mugabe called farm invasions Chimurenga (war), my suspicion is that my uncle believed that he was following orders hence he was hopeful for a pardon from Mugabe, Mugabe had pardoned people for attempted murder against opposition figures. During the ensuing violence overseas managers at our company flew into Zimbabwe and they crunched the numbers and after a few days our company stopped insuring farmers altogether and about 40% of the staff was retrenched. Around 2005 AIG Zimbabwe closed their Zimbabwean offices.

I first met Sekuru Katsande in 1990 when my father was transferred to Marondera. My maternal grandmother vaSoko is from the Katsande family in Mutoko. Sekuru Givemore Katsande father is brother to my grandmother. Growing up around my grandmother vaSoko everytime there was a mishap she would say ,”baba vangu Muwoni iwe”(shame my father Muwoni). Sekuru Givemore Katsande was given his grandfather’s name Muwoni. Sekuru Katsande was a war veteran and walked with a limp and I gathered he was injured during the war. He was working in the Zimbabwe National Army as a captain, it seems by the time he took voluntary retrenchment he was now a major.

Around 1990, the Zimbabwean government embarked on the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) as part of accessing foreign currency and financing from IMF. It entailed the government bringing down its spending. This involved the government retrenching tens of thousands of workers. Sekuru Katsande was going to take that voluntary retrenchment package and he prepared for life as a civilian. By the time I started O’Level in 1992, we started studying together. The army was providing lessons to him and his fellow soldiers and he had a lot of books that he shared with me.

One of the set books we read in O’Level Shona was ‘Zvairwadza Vasara’ which documents the war experience during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation and I was curious to know more about the war. One day I asked him about his war experience, he never answered me and I could see it traumatized him. From that day onwards I never asked anyone about their war experience. I later learnt that Sekuru Givemore has resigned from the army and he had opened a supermarket in Mabvuku/Tafara Townships of Harare. In 1996 I also left home as I started working.

I would visit him at his new home less frequently. Many people especially in South Africa thinks the farm invasions in Zimbabwe were spontaneous and this is not correct. Farm invasions were planned and orchestrated by Zimbabwe National Army which most likely armed the war veterans. The department of war veterans in Zimbabwe falls directly under the ministry of defence. From 2001 to 2008, I ran 5 shops in former commercial farming areas of Virginia, Macheke at every farm people who called the shots were war veterans. Many of us still remember the bizarre press conference by senior military officers led by Defence forces Commander Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe to say they would not salute a person who didn’t fight in the war an indirect reference to Morgan Tsvangirai. Incidentally my late brother in law who was married to my cousin was the aide/bodyguard to General Zvinavashe.

Senior military personnel has always been involved in the management of elections in Zimbabwe and even as we speak the current chief elections officer is Major Utoile Silaigwana a military man. Many people believe the the 2002 election was engineered to deny victory to Morgan Tsvangirai, for an independent report on how flawed that election was you have to read the report compiled by South Africa’s justices Sisi Kamphepe and Dikgang Moseneke. The 2005 Operation Murambatsvina is most likely have been sanctioned by the army as an effort to decongest the urban population to rural areas in order to have more citizens in rural areas where people are easier to control to benefit Zanu-PF in future elections.

In 2008 after Mugabe lost the first round presidential election, it was the army which deployed senior officers to oversee the violence against ordinary citizens which saw the murder of over 200 MDC supporters and thousands more were raped, injured and displaced from their homes. The judge who sat on the March 2008 election results for more than a month and was the man in charge of that elections is Justice George Chiweshe himself a war veteran and also a military man. We saw it again in November 2017, the army intervened to save Zanu-PF. I am interested to know what many war veterans and army personnel including those who retired thinks about the latest moves to give back land to white farmers. I think we need proper land reform audits, we need to provide land to all deserving Zimbabweans regardless of race. I fear that this latest move will be opposed vigorously and we might be about to see another coup in Zimbabwe. Many of my relatives and friends are beneficiaries of land reform.

24 YEARS OF WORKING

September 2020 marks 24 years since I started working. When I was finishing A’Level in 1995, I started wondering again what career I would do. In my spare time I would walk from Dombotombo Township to Mutare road and walk all the way to Peterhouse College and back home looking at cars. I am fascinated with cars, I don’t hesitate buying cars. I would also go and see beautiful homes in Paradise Park Suburb. One day I went to buy chicken feed for my mother’s chicken project at Mascho Farmers’ shop, I saw a young man driving a brand new Nissan Sunny box. I was impressed by that young man 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

I asked what he did, he was working as a sales representative for manufacturing company in Harare. At that time I was also looking at vacancies trends in the Herald Newspapers. One job that was paying a lot was being a CA. I knew that for one to become a CA another route was to study BCompt with Unisa. I would cycle to town and teach Mathematics to Chipo Manhuwa for free she was going to rewrite O’Level Maths. Her father had these UNISA handbooks. I couldn’t afford UNISA fees.

When my results came early 1996, I first enrolled for IMM. Eventually by the time I got a job as a temporary teacher in September I then registered with CIMA and bought study materials and started studying. I was going to CIMA library along Nelson Mandela Avenue in Harare during school holidays and on weekends. I knew I needed to be in Harare. The clearest path for me was to go to Hillside teachers’ college in Bulawayo and train either as a science or maths teacher. I once considered it when I met a girl but when the relationship didn’t work out I was happy I had not applied to go to college.

In mid July 1997, I took a risk and left teaching where I earned about $2 600 and went to work in Harare as a printing apprentice earning $840 a months. In November 1997 the Zimbabwean dollar fell which meant I couldn’t afford to pay for my CIMA studies. Luckily I got a job as a Trainee Undewriter at Eagle Insurance Company then a Subsidiary of SA Eagle and it later became Zurich Financial services, we were all given our Swatch watches written Zurich after the merger 👌🏿My starting salary at Eagle was $3 000.00. I am so glad I took the risk to leave teaching and took that massive salary cut.

My employer paid for my insurance studies through Insurance Institute of South Africa. By mid 1999 I was at Diamond Insurance earning over $9 000.00 I was now bargaining🙈By April 2000 I was at AIG Zimbabwe earning $20 000, I could now afford to open a current account with Standard Chartered Bank 👌🏿2002 I became a manager at Zimbabwe Insurance Brokers. 2003 I completed my Associateship. 2004 I became an Underwriting Manager at Zimnat Lion Insurance. 2005 I completed my Fellowship exams. 2007 I left Zimbabwe and got a job on the 8th day of arriving in South Africa 👏🏿 In 2014, I eventually completed my BCompt degree with UNISA

STARTING A SPAZA SHOP OR A TUCKSHOP

Maybe someone is contemplating starting a spaza shop business. I hope this might help. If one is in South Africa, local authorities are very accommodating of small businesses, you can open a shop from the boundary wall of your house in the township and trade without much hinderance from authorities. From 2011 to 2012 during the US$ era we operated a tuckshop at our house in Zimre Park just outside Harare, Zimbabwe. Though it was very profitable unfortunately we had so many problems with our local authority. My wife and I we alternated visiting Zimbabwe frequently to manage the tuckshop.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

I was fortunate that my uncle and my cousins have been in retail industry for many years. I learnt that you need to listen to the customers. You stock products that customers prefer and not what you like. If you listen to your customers you see the stock flying off the shelf and increasing your profits. It’s alway important to treat customers with respect. I remember in the 80s during school holidays whenever I went to our village in Murehwa we would visit the store at the neighboring white commercial farm Paradise Farm which is in Virginia, Macheke to sell vegetables to farm workers and to crush our maize at the grinding mill owned by the farmer because that was the nearest place with electricity. We would visit the farm store to buy cool drinks etc. The store keeper was always rude to us. In 2001 during land reform, I took over that shop and ran it until 2003. All in all I operated 4 shops in Macheke former commercial farming areas until early 2008.

FINANCE

Starting a tuckshop you don’t need a lot of capital, you can start by buying stock that can last you say three days and once it’s finished you can go and replenish the stock. With the profit you get, you can reinvest into the business and eventually you can buy more stock that can last longer and a variety of stock. You need to build a shop that is strong and use part of your boundary wall as part of the shop. As a precaution, you only put a very few stock items on display in the tuckshop and lock away the rest safely in the main house.

In urban areas bakeries can deliver bread to your shop early in the morning and later in the afternoon they will come and collect their money. In practice they will be giving your short term finance. In our tuckshop in Zimre Park, three major bakeries in Harare competed delivering bread to us, obviously you have to listen to your customers as to which brand they preferred. You can also get short term finances from other small businesses eg people keeping layer chicken can supply you with eggs periodically on short term credit.

COSTS CONTAINMENT

For me this was the biggest issue, managing your costs in business is the one thing that is entirely within your control. Like any business, you need to lower your costs as much as possible and one skill, I learnt is to know prices very well, you must make it a point to keep abreast of pricing. When you buy your stock, you need to look for the lowest prices possible. I was never loyal to one wholesaler. At times I would buy stock in major supermarkets because at times because they would have the lowest prices. Because the lower the price you obtain the stock, the higher is your profit. It can also allow you to manage your competition better. I ran general dealer shops in rural areas in Zimbabwe from 2001 to 2008. For years it was a norm that bread in rural areas would be more expensive in rural areas. I managed to buy bread at a bakery at Makoni, Chitungwiza and sell it in Macheke and Mutoko at the same price that it was being sold in urban areas. During Christmas Day of 2004, we made two trips to supply almost 100 dozens of bread and still made a profit on bread alone.

The round trip from Harare to my shop was 300kms. At that time I had not read for my accounting degree but I was able to realise that I needed to open more than one shop along the way so that I could lower my distribution costs. By 2005 I had 10 shops along the way. I ended up going to the shops three times a week because my costs were much lower. My goal was always to sell my stock at the same price as shops in Harare. By 2006 I was traveling to as far as Gaborone, Botswana, Musina and Johannesburg monthly to buy stock.

INSURANCE
With the high levels of crime in South Africa it is essential to get insurance for your business. The major risks involves the handling of cash, handling cigarettes and airtime vouchers. With the high incidents of service delivery protests and other community protests you definitely need that cover provided by SASRIA, you need to talk to your insurance broker around a suitable cover for you. You should also consider buying a swiping machine after consulting with your bank to minimize the risks that come with handling cash. Also on airtime you can also an electronic airtime dispensing machine to manage the theft risk as well. Don’t forget to insure these machines as well.

EXPANSION
By operating a retail shop it can allow you to expand into other related businesses eg opening Spathlo business etc.

I welcome any comments, questions or suggestions🙏🏿

13 YEARS AS A FOREIGNER: I AM THANKFUL FOR EVERYONE WHO SAID NO TO ME, BECAUSE OF THEM I'M DOING IT MYSELF

I had never heard the word NO this much directed at me until I became a foreigner. The first few years it was depressing but years later, I realised it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It changed me forever. I learnt to rely on myself and it helped me to keep focused.

On the morning of 22 August 2007, I went to the South African embassy in Harare to check on the outcome of my work permit application. It was about six weeks after I had left my passport there. I badly needed the passport as I wanted to travel outside Zimbabwe to buy stock for my general dealer shops after my business had almost been decimated during the brutal price control blitz of 2007.

At the embassy I met a colleague, Ronald Dodo-Tabaziva who had worked at Zimre Reinsurance Company. We were very happy we had been given 5 year work permits instead of 3 year permits. I had officially left my job at the end of July 2007 as the Bulawayo branch manager for Zimnat Lion Insurance company. It no longer made sense for me to continue going to work as the salary I got was almost nothing due to the ravages of inflation in Zimbabwe. From around 2001, I had started a small retail shop and by 2007 a combination of market gardening in Kensington Bulawayo, my four retail shops, my 7 tonne truck, minibus taxi and tobacco farming now paid the bills.

Armed with a work permit I thought I will be able to restart my career in the South African insurance industry and rise in my career. Having completed my Associateship exams in 2003 and my fellowship exams in 2005, I had enrolled for an MBA with a UK university before dropping off as I couldn’t raise the forex required. I thought I would get a position that suited my qualifications and experience in South Africa and enroll for MBA again.

MaNyoni and I travelled home to Bulawayo that night to collect my certificates and our clothes. We left Bulawayo early on 23 August 2007 and arrived at my sister’s place in Sunnyside late that afternoon. I went to see Gerald as I was considering even working as a waiter just as a start. I started applying for jobs online from the Internet cafes. Within a few days I was going for interviews. I was not choosy, my idea was to first get my foot in and then start looking again for a position that matched my qualifications and experience. I thought we would go back home in Zimbabwe to wind down issues after applying submitting jobs applications.

On 31 August 2007, I signed an employment offer and started work as a call center claims advisor on the 1st of September. We rented a room and we were sharing the flat with other people. Life can change dramatically, a mere two months before I had been staying in the company house in the leafy suburb of Burnside Bulawayo, driving a company allocated Toyota double cab. Now I was starting at the bottom sharing accommodation sleeping on the floor and now using minibus taxis to travel around.

Within the first month I enquired about renting our own apartments and I was told as foreigners we were required to pay double deposit. I knew there and then we needed to buy our own apartment. I was applying for jobs, I realised many big commercial insurance companies that recognized qualifications I had were not employing foreigners. If you did not have an ID number you couldn’t even register or upload your CV on their job portals. Some of them you could register on the website, when the online questions asked if you qualified for employment equity and once you wrote no, you would get an automatic rejection.

The only place where my application would be considered was with employment agents. I would fill in huge application forms, go to Internet cafes scan and e-mail the application forms. I would be told sorry they are not taking foreigners. To be fair many black South Africans struggle to make it in their own country. I kept on trying. My work permit had the following conditions; report to Home affairs offices within 90 days of entering South Africa and confirm whether I had got employed and report again every twelve months to confirm if I was still employed. My experience with home affairs needs a blog on its own.

I asked for the employment letter from our payroll department and took a taxi to the Pretoria regional home affairs office then at Pretorius Street. I was served by an abrupt official. I told him I had come to report, gave him my letter of employment and my passport. He said he actually wanted a letter to confirm that my employer had failed to get a South African to occupy the position I was in. I pointed out to him that my work permit was a quota work permit all what was required is to be employed in the sector. He refused to serve me further. I demanded to see his supervisor and it turned out he was also the supervisor.

Fortunately on the walls of the corridors of the regional office they had advertised the cellphone number of the regional manager. I phoned the regional manager and explained the situation to her. She then phoned him and explained to the supervisor that for my work permit category that letter was not required. I later discovered that many times I visited the home affairs I would have problems. If you are coming from a stable country, I don’t see why one would leave their country and come to South Africa and put up with all that nonsense. I also met a Zimbabwean guy who had qualified as a CA in Zimbabwe and had worked for Innscor as a financial controller. He had come to report that he was failing to get a job, he was staying with a friend in Midrand. He gave me a lift to our office in Centurion. In 1996 when my peers went to University of Zimbabwe to start their degrees, only straight A students were being accept into the Bachelor of Accounting degree and here was one such person failing to make it in South Africa 😳

I was not coping very well, I started traveling to Zimbabwe every month. At times I would get to Harare on Saturday afternoon and that evening I would take another bus back to Pretoria. The situation in Zimbabwe was getting worse, seeing how bad the situation was in Zimbabwe helped me to cope with the challenges I had in South Africa. It did hurt me that I had very little career prospects in South Africa as compared to 10 years earlier when I had started my insurance career in Zimbabwe. The path in Zimbabwe was clear get your insurance qualifications and work hard at work you would rise through the rank in South Africa all that didn’t count for much. Some of my qualified peers came later in 2009, they failed to get jobs, I met a qualified Zimbabwean secondary school teacher working as bread delivery truck driver in Cape Town, a Zimbabwean guy with a master’s degree waiting as a waiter in Centurion etc 😢

I knew I had to go back home. Early 2008 we had the first xenophobic attacks in South Africa my family had gone back to Zimbabwe in January 2008 I was preparing to go back home for good in a few months once I paid off my Toyota Tazz. Clement whom I was sharing a room in Sunnyside and was working as a waiter at Wimpy described how his neighbours in the township had attacked him and took away all his belongings including the money he was saving. He was fortunate he managed to outrun them. A workmate Jean who is a white Afrikaner gentleman sent me frantic message to come and stay with him in Centurion for my safety. I assured him I was safe. Many South Africans were also killed in the violence because they looked foreign.

End of March 2008, I travelled to Harare to vote, Zanu-PF lost parliamentary majority. Things were promising in Zimbabwe. I had now reopened my retail business in Zimbabwe. We voted on Saturday. On the Sunday morning I left my in-laws’ house in Chitungwiza where MaNyoni and our kids were staying. As I looked for transport back to Pretoria people were happy that Zanu-PF had lost the elections. I got to Pretoria around 9pm that Sunday and all the dozen Zimbabweans I shared the flat with wanted to know about home. I told them Zanu-PF had lost. A month later we were told that there was going to be a presidential election run off. My wife later told me the election related violence was getting worse, even in urban areas they were now being forced to attend Zanu-PF rallies. She came back to South Africa. I went back to vote in the June 2008 runoff even though Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn a few days before the vote after over 200 MDC supporters had been murdered, thousands more had been injured and displaced from their homes.

I kept on going to Zimbabwe, after one such visit I told MaNyoni how I envied my in laws and my cousin who were beneficiaries of land reform. My work permit was expiring in 2012 and with my experience at home affairs I doubted if it would be renewed. We started saving to build our home. Towards the end of November 2009 the day I finished writing my exams in the Accounting degree I had enrolled in that semester, I loaded four disassembled wheel barows, a tent I borrowed from my friend Evelyn Botha and other tools into my Toyota Tazz and drove to Harare.

My father in law had said I could get the steel house from my brother in law and when I enquired about the steel house it was not available. I pitched the tent at our stand in Zimre Park, Mereka slept in the car. The first heavy rains came in and I thought I was going to drown in my tent. The following morning we went to Mount Hamptden to buy the first 10 000 batch of bricks and hired a truck. I interviewed builders and explained to them I didn’t have much time. My first job in 1996-1997, I had worked also as a building teacher. I would buy a few bags of cement and carry them home with my Toyota Tazz. By the time my two weeks leave was up the 2 bedroom house was almost at roof level.

From 2008 when I realised how bad situation was in Zimbabwe, I started concentrating on earning as much salary as I could, I worked overtime. End of 2008, at work they advertised for aspiring team managers. I applied, we were asked to write a motivational letter, went for written assessments and finally a face to face interview with heads of department. I failed the face to face interview dismally. In 2009 one of the team managers resigned, I applied and went for interview. The feedback the HOD gave me was that I was not visible.

A few months later I went to see this movie, Invictus, I was inspired and I applied again when one of the team managers resigned. I went again to what I thought was going to be an interview. The only person who came was my HOD he started giving me feedback even before we had an interview, he said I was very quiet and not visible. I didn’t participate in events etc. He asked me who were my role models, I told him it was my previous two bosses Glen and Wayne who were great bosses in my view. He disagreed saying they were not, can’t I see they had now left the department for assessing. After that meeting I phoned Glen and told him what had happened. Wayne then phoned me days later.

I got the impression that his preferred people were outgoing people who stood on top of desks shouting, replying to chain e-mails. Some of the people people who made jokes or sang during monthly department meetings. Years later I worked with those people when they were demoted or when I briefly worked as an acting team manager in 2011 and I really felt sorry for them as he set them for failure and all of them eventually left the company😢Denise who is very smart a graduate from University of Pretoria with an Actuary degree one of my role models was an introvert like me, she had trained me when I joined the company and she told me that I would excel, she was right I have won the six months top performer 4 times and I have earned salaries beyond my imagination. Denise had also acted as my boss for many months. She also did not match his standards. She also left the department and later left the company.

I know there is nothing wrong with my personality, I will never pretend to be someone who I am not. I stopped applying to me it was like playing a game rigged against you or participating in Mugabe’s election at least with Mugabe you get screwed once in five years. I continued working as hard as I could to earn as much as possible and started imagining business ideas in South Africa and back home in Zimbabwe. I have built a home in Zimbabwe, invested in farming ventures and also my retail businesses. All my businesses in Zimbabwe have failed and I lost a lot of money and in the process I learnt valuable lessons. After high school I had wanted to be a chartered accountant but back then I couldn’t afford fees for the UNISA Bcompt degree. I decided to try and do something that was based on merit so I started studying for the Bcompt degree.

I wrote my first 5 modules in November 2009, took a break in 2012 because my work permit was expiring then so I concentrated on repaying my debts in case I had to go back home. My work permit was renewed for another five years and shortly after that we got permanent residence. In 2014 when I did my final year, I wrote six modules in the first semester when we are usually very busy at work. It was tough I continued working long hours. Whenever I came home too tired to study I would remember what had happened with my former HOD in 2009. I would wake-up and study. I finished my degree in 2014 and enrolled for CTA starting January 2015 before discontinuing after failing to get a position as an articled clerk. I owe that degree to my former HOD as his actions motivated me to do something else.

In 2009, we put an offer on a 3 bedroom townhouse in Centurion that was advertised on FNB quicksell website. Our offer was accepted and we proceeded to apply for homeloan at my bank FNB, the answer was sorry for foreigners we only give 50% finance. I am so grateful for that because had we got that finance we would never have sacrificed and built our home in Zimbabwe. Fortunately in 2010 Nedbank agreed to give us 90% finance for our home even though we did not bank with them🙏🏿

As humans we are meant to overcome adversity. Foreigners normally excel in the same countries were the locals complain about. Because you have so much stacked against you, any opportunity that comes your way you grab it with both hands. I knew if I lost my job chances of getting another job were very slim so each and every salary was put to good use. Being a foreigner helped me to be focused and every challenge I met along the way helped me to accomplish many things beyond my imagination. I leant that my future was within my control and for the first time I knew what I am going to do with the rest of my life🙏🏿 Also being a foreigner you don’t get too much into debt as many companies are scared of extending debt to foreigners. When you get car finance for example with 2 years left on your permit, it seems harsh that you have to repay that debt in two years. The flip side is you save on interest and you quickly own paid up assets.

When you have not much to lose it helps you to dig deeper within you. As much as I don’t like the politics in Israel, in my view because the situation they find themselves they are more likely to emerge victorious militarily, in science and technology and economically. There is nothing as strong as human spirit to overcome obstacles. If you have a chance live as a foreigner for a bit and see many things you took for granted in your home country. They say we all need friction in our lives to grow. I am very grateful for all the NO I got, it is because of that I did it myself🙏🏿

I remember in early 2017 driving from Pretoria to Beitbridge on Friday evening and not sleeping. After midnight cross the border on foot to Zimbabwe and get transport to Chivhu getting there around 10am on Saturday to buy pig feed travel to the farm to monitor the pigs, get transport to Mutoko, run about 30kms to my cousin’s place. Wake up early on Sunday morning to go to the tobacco fields. Then get transport to Harare arriving around 12midday arriving at Beitbridge around 8pm would normally leave the border around 10pm drive and sleep at the petrol stations for a few hours and kept on driving. I would be in the office by 7:30am on Monday morning as I couldn’t afford to miss Monday out busiest day and lose money. I discovered that I had so much in me in having to travel about 2300kms during a normal weekend🙏🏿

13 YEARS AS A FOREIGNER

2007 started very promising for us in Zimbabwe. We had no plans of leaving Zimbabwe. MaNyoni decided to resign from her job as a bank teller. She had been working for years in the back office at CABS head office in Borrowdale Harare. After I became Bulawayo branch manager for Zimnat Lion Insurance Company from 1 April 2006, MaNyoni requested a transfer to Bulawayo and she became a bank teller. She now worked on weekends and stayed late to balance books like all bank tellers do. During public holidays she was required to come to work and load the ATM with cash. She was not happy as a bank teller.

Our personal businesses were doing well, we had scaled back on our general dealer shops from 10 the previous year and now only remained with 4 profitable shops in Macheke and Mutoko resettlement areas. That year we grew tobacco for the first time although it was on a small scale I got a very good grade of tobacco, I remember feeling very proud when I attended the tobacco auction floor in Willowvale Harare, people commended me for such a nice crop of tobacco. The previous year, I had started operating a Toyota minibus taxi(I will never run a taxi business again)from Macheke to my shop just after Virginia. My 7 tonne Bedford truck was carrying cotton around Mutoko. We were also renting a 6 acre plot in Kensington, Bulawayo where we did market gardening. I employed more than a dozen people. I had a very capable manager in Macheke🙏🏿

I had a stroke of luck one Sunday morning. On the previous Friday afternoon I had driven to Francistown Botswana to buy clothes and shoes stock from Chinese traders and on Saturday morning I had driven to Musina South Africa to buy groceries such as boxes of cooking oil, washing soap, petroleum jelly etc. I woke up around 3am at home to drive almost 600kms to my shops. I gave a lift to a number of people from Bulawayo. Before I dropped off this guy in Gweru he asked if I could get sugar beans in Mutoko as they were in demand in Bulawayo due to the drought that year from the traditional source in Masvingo irrigation schemes.

I got to Mutoko that morning and bought 4 x 50kg bags of sugar beans from farmers from my shop. The following day was a Monday, I phoned the guy and he did not have money, I started researching the market in Bulawayo. I eventually sold the sugar beans for a huge profit to this wholesaler owned by an Indian gentleman close to Rainbow hotel. I took a week leave from work and started buying sugar beans from farmers door to door in Mutoko close to Corner Store Mutoko. I went through hills and bad roads, my company allocated Toyota Hilux came in handy.

I hired a trailer and carried two tonnes per trip from Macheke to Bulawayo. After MaNyoni resigned we no longer had helpers at home. The two of us loaded and offloaded those 50kg bags alone💪🏿 I eventually negotiated a good price with this company that supplied OK and TM supermarkets. There were cash shortages at that time but the guy paid me in cash. I supplied about 5 tonnes. We made around R100 000.00, this other guy in the Insurance industry his father was selling an Isuzu bakkie for around R30 000.00, I paid cash and I didn’t even test drive it, I asked him to drop it at home. I started using it after I resigned and handed over the company car I had.

MaNyoni suggested that we save the money, I did not agree so I invested the rest in the shops. I would drive to Johannesburg Crown Mines to Africa Cash and Carry and bought radios, TVs, solar panels, batteries, groceries etc and filled up my shops. I bought more stock in Francistown. Cotton farmers were being paid cash right there at our shopping center at my main shop at Janhi in Mutoko and would come and buy. Zimbabwean dollar was fast losing value but we were tracking the black market rate. Every week I would convert the money to over R20 000.00. After Easter I decided to resign from my job inflation made my salary worthless. Being at work hindered me from making more money.

Then American Ambassador Christopher Dell was quoted saying, Mugabe risked being toppled due to the high inflation. Over night Mugabe launched the price control blitz. Scores of executives from manufacturing and retail companies were arrested. Government officials came to my shops and forced my workers to sell stock for a fraction of what we had imported it for. My manager was also arrested as she recounted to me, there was a police officer, army, intelligence operative etc, they accused her of trying to bring down the government due to high prices.

We lost a lot of money. Up to that point, I had never seriously considered leaving Zimbabwe, I had always believed through hard work we could live a decent life in Zimbabwe. Many villagers don’t have cash so I always bartered maize for groceries. After the price control blitz there was shortages of food in the country. I started carrying a tonne of maize every night from Virginia, Macheke I would avoid police roadblocks In Marondera ( I grew up in Marondera so I know all the back roads) I would sell the maize in Mayambara, Chitungwiza and got paid in Rands.

Villagers started buying goods with forex due to the shortages. My problem was that my passport was at the South African embassy for 6 weeks awaiting the outcome on the work permit application so I couldn’t travel to Botswana or South Africa to buy stock. In Zimbabwe almost every manufacturer had stopped production. We were now looking to rebuild our business with the expensive stock we were buying in Harare. I collected my work permit on 22 August 2007, that morning whilst driving to my shop in Macheke the Isuzu bakkie broke down by the farm belonging to former Finance Minister Simba Makoni. MaNyoni and I travelled overnight home to Bulawayo and we left for South Africa the next morning hoping to go and apply for jobs and come back to Zimbabwe to rebuild. On 31 August 2007, I signed an employment offer and started working on 1 September 2007.

I bought parts for the Isuzu and it was repaired and I learnt that in my absence my driver was now ferrying passengers to and from Mutoko and pocketing the money. The next time the bakkie broke down I didn’t send parts. At that time I was using taxis in South Africa whilst my driver was abusing my vehicle. Within a few months in South Africa I realised that my qualifications and experience didn’t count for much. Many companies didn’t employ foreigners, I saw no future in South Africa. I was planning to go back home for good as soon as I paid my Toyota Tazz of which I owed the bank less than R50 000,00.

I started restocking my shops from end of 2007. I loaded as much goods I could fit into the Tazz and drove to Zimbabwe. Around February 2008, I took leave and went to Zimbabwe. I travelled to Musina and bought cartons of cooking oil and carried using haulage trucks coming from South Africa. I went to Zimbabwe for the March 2008 elections which was won by MDC. We were planning to go back home for good until the election violence started 😢 inflation became even worse in 2008. I was traveling to Zimbabwe every month and the situation was very hopeless, it was even more difficult to run any business from South Africa, I had no option but to close.

GROWING UP IN TOWNSHIP, THE STRUGGLE WAS REAL- DATING AS A TEEN

Some of my Twitter friends were commenting on having heartbreak 🥰in your teens. So at the end of 1993 after writing national O’Level exams I got an embarrassing job selling bread in the township from a hoarder bicycle 7 days a week, some of the girls I knew pretended like they no longer knew me. I had two shifts from 5:30am to around 10am and from 5pm to 6:30pm and in between I went to hang out with my friend.

In one of those days in the company of my friends we met this new girl and we debated on who would approach her and I approached her (I will not say her name because her cousin is a friend of mine here on Facebook). It turned out that she was a border and was a grade behind me and was going to Marondera High School a local model C School or former group A school as it is called in Zimbabwe. Her parents were both teachers and she stayed in the middle income section of the township. I was going to a school in a township Secondary school or St Nyoka school a derogatory term for such schools. I rarely saw her after that firs encounter as she barely went out of her house and I decided to write her a letter. I went to Kingstone bookshop bought coloured paper. There was a lady in Yellow City who designed the papers for a fee. I then wrote a love letter in my best English to her🙈🤣 I even included a self-addressed stamped envelope.

After a week I came home and my two sisters who come after me Rosemary and Phillipa were laughing at me🙈🤣 The girl had marked my english with a red pen and returned the letter and wrote, “next time fly a kite don’t ever write to me”. For months my sisters reminded me about flying a kite 🪁. My mum had opened the letter and she was cross with me saying instead of concentrating on school I was busy chasing girls. Three years later when I was now working as a temporary teacher another girl wrote a love letter to me and my mum opened it again. When she wanted to give me the letter, I didn’t read it and i proceeded to burn it and from that day my mum never opened any of my letters again. So early 94 O’Level results came out. It was not surprising I got a C in English, 4As & 3Bs in the rest of the subjects.

Weeks later my A’Level acceptance letter came from Mutambara High School my 3rd choice. My 1st and 2nd choice on the sixth form selection form was Fletcher High School and Gokomere High School. The day the letter came, I boarded the overnight train to Mutare and took the B&C bus to Chimanimani. I arrived at the school around lunch time and went to the office, I had been given the combination I wanted Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry and I was happy. Later we went to see the dormitories. I was not impressed, it reminded of Nhowe Mission nearer to our village in Murehwa (my uncle my mother’s elder brother Mr Teddy Kagoro had for years taught at the nearby Waterloo Primary School). I decided there and then that I would not come to this school, got a lift to Mutare road and the another to city of Mutare and got there in time for the train to Harare. I got home and told my mother about my decision and she never argued with me.

I started looking for a place went to Bernard Mizeki College, Marondera High School, Allan Wilson High School, Goromonzi High School (at Goromonzi I was given arts subjects and I refused , I was not going to do Mutauro (Shona), Bhaibheri (Divinity) and Ngano (History) at A’Level🤣🙈 Eventually I was enrolled at Marondera High School. In 1994 there were only two day schools offering A’Level in the town of Marondera, the other one being Nagle House Catholic Girls High School. A few weeks after starting school, I bumped into the fly a kite🪁 girl at school when my class was going from the maths class going to the lab. I greeted her cheerfully and for the rest of the two years we were civil to each other but I never asked her out again. My best friends Osten and James were now going to Allan Wilson High School in Harare and they considered any girl who played netball as not so cool. She played netball and was in the school team. I last saw her in September 2002 at Murehwa Growth point she said she was waiting for a bus to a school around Mutawatawa, she became a teacher like her parents.

WHY I NO LONGER HAVE SYMPATHY FOR ZIMBABWEANS

These photos were taken in 2013 outside Avondale Primary school voting station and at Kumbudzi looking for transport back to South Africa. That was the worst election I attended in terms of voter apathy. Vendors and minibus taxi drivers (maHwindi) were going on with their business in Harare and were not bothered with voting. Last night I saw videos of thousands of Zimbabweans running from Harare CBD to avoid the unjust 6pm to 6am curfew yet minibus taxis are banned and ZUPCO doesn’t have enough buses to ferry all passengers.

As Zimbabweans we are docile and that includes cowards like me who ran away from home. When I saw those videos last night I didn’t feel any sympathy, I am sorry, kusiri kufa ndekupi. Instead of a hungry person walking 30kilometers home isn’t it better to peacefully demonstrate to free ourselves. The regime is able to do divide and rule us because we are paralyzed with fear.

This reminds me of an incident in 2005 after work in Harare on my way home to Marlborough I passed by Borne Marche’ supermarket along The Chase in Mount Pleasant. That time we had shortage of bread in the country, the instore bakery happened to be be baking bread at that moment and I joined the queue, behind me came my senior our Human Resources Director. People in front of us in true Zimbabwean style were saying, “zvichanaka chete” (things will be alright one day). I chatted with my boss how hopeless we were as Zimbabweans.

I just imagine if it was in South Africa were minibus taxis were banned and citizens were subjected to such inhuman conditions, no gun or threat of jail would save the government. What is it with us Zimbabweans that cause us to be this docile as if we were chicken. Tiri huku. There is a saying, “mwari anobatsira anozvibatsira”. Let’s unite whether you are in or out of the country to free ourselves🙏🏿