Ox carts and Mugabe take Zimbabwe back to dark ages

By Tererai Karimakwenda
28 May, 2007

Zimbabweans are living without power or running water most of the time these days. That means the luxury of hot baths and night time television viewing is a thing of the past. And without affordable fuel, many people are walking to work or cycling. The policies of the Mugabe regime are pulling the country back in time to the dark ages, literally. And now the answer to fuel shortages is ox drawn carts!
South Africa’s Business Day newspaper reported that Zimbabwe’s government has embarked on a project to resuscitate agriculture. The plan involves the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono setting up technical colleges to produce ox-drawn carts and ploughs to help communal farmers produce food. Gono is quoted saying the project was part of government's mechanisation programme. Government says at least half a million ox-drawn carts would be produced at institutions set up in 62 districts around the country. Gono said this would also create jobs for youths as well as boost agriculture.
Political commentator Dr John Makumbe dismissed this plan as another stop-gap measure taken by a desperate regime. He said Gono forgot that when they took the commercial farms, they ate all the meat at a braai and there are no cattle to pull the carts. Eventually he said government will force the farmer and his family to pull the ploughs. The political science professor also explained that government announces all these pointless projects in order to appear as though they are doing something and forging ahead. He added: “They want to seem as though they are running government, when this government is not running well at all.”
Once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe has been reduced to buying maize from countries that used to import ours, including Malawi. Some white commercial farmers who were evicted illegally from their properties in Zimbabwe resettled in neighbouring countries and have helped to boost agricultural production there. While back in Zimbabwe, ox-drawn carts are the best the government has come up with as a solution.