When climate change exposes corruption and leadership failures

By Jacob Mtandwa

Thank God, the heavens are pouring, the rivers are whistling and ululating teeming with life and proudly emptying their precious load into dams and lakes for safe keeping.

Water is central to our existence and so vital to life. Amid all this, little does nature realise that it is also exposing the rot and corrupt activities of society, when houses built in wetlands, flood plains, river banks are flooded, poorly maintained and neglected roads are yawning and gaping and disease out breaks threaten to wipe out communities.

The pictures and stories circulating on social and main stream media kill and bury hope, they strangle ambition.

Where was government? Where is government? Your guess is as good as mine. Roads in the city centres flooding and flowing like streams due to poor drainage systems.

Real leaders are always deeply concerned about public service and the next generation, but political leaders are concerned about the next election.

What has happened to public service in Zimbabwe? Political ambition and self-aggrandisement have virtually eroded public service and social responsibility of government.

The state of the roads in Harare and Zimbabwe in general is no longer a comic but a cosmic one. It has now usurped the boundaries of social media jocular updates and posts. Zimbabweans are well known for their undying penchant for comedy eclipsing matters of life and death, but this one now require serious attention from the government.

This shows the highest level of public service neglect. Harare’s roads are now littered with potholes, so much that everyone is now driving or walking through swerving or meandering dancing to the tune of the surface. The heavy rains have further exposed the rot in service delivery in the country.

Most roads leading into the city centre, suburbs and the industrial sites have become virtually impassable. The situation is made worse by the incessant rains pounding the country, the poorly maintained roads easily succumbing to the rains.

The cost of doing business in the country is severely affected as investors and companies must invest more in off road vehicles. This increases the cost of capital outlay and investing in the country.

It is also pertinent to know that this neglect of our roads leads also to loss of lives in road crashes. It is therefore vital to address the state of road infrastructure in Zimbabwe, particularly if the country is to achieve any meaningful economic development. It looks like anything that does not accrue immediate political mileage does not matter to government anymore. Development has been politicized to the extent of marginalizing citizens in political pathways. The phantoms of political benefit are shrouding socio-political responsibility of our leaders.

Due to the poor road network our farmers are therefore condemned to grow not what they can eat, but what they can carry on their heads and can consume quickly before pests destroy it since they cannot easily move their produce to the markets. This is now explained by the fact that, nearly half of the hungry people in the country are farmers.

The government must adopt a comprehensive approach that underscores the need for a road system that guarantees citizen safety, livability, and a sense of community. The transport choices of the ruling elite, which tends to be the use of SUVs to navigate poorly maintained roads, reduces the incentives for addressing poor road infrastructure and shows the highest level of arrogance. The taxes which the citizens pay to government should be used to foster social justice and not perpetuate political animosity. Moreover, the wrong perception of road use as "poor people issues" militates against adequate and safe road infrastructure in Zimbabwe.

Instead of members of parliament advocating for funds for the rehabilitation of the roads within their communities, they cry out loud for government funding to secure for SUVs so that they can access their communities. The main arteries of the road network are an eyesore country wide. School children routinely have to cross dangerous roads and rivers to get to school. Drivers must dodge potholes with regularity and spend a lot of money on vehicle maintenance costs.

The dominance of the road network in economic use is not difficult to understand. Roads are ubiquitous, providing total connectivity and offering wide and flexible and cheaper choices for many users. Roads are the pulse of the economy. They enhance reach to destinations by tourists, new markets by our new farmers, and general road safety.

These rains are a result of climate change and the government is well placed and informed. There is a fully-fledged Ministry tasked to monitor and help knit government policy towards climate change adaptation and sustainability. We must see the Environment Ministry playing its role in avoiding future catastrophic events brought about by climate change, which range from floods, drought, and diseases

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