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Cuthbert Dube

Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo Make A Difference
If  you live an ordinary life, away from controversy and away from the public glare, will you ever make it big? Do the good and decent citizens of this country, who actually have ideas and a passion for improving things stand a chance?Just who do we reward and who do we choose to represent us and our interests? I used to think goodness and decency counts for something; but I am not so sure anymore.

Just look around you today; is it the honest and hard working man who wakes up early daily to try and fend for his family, who is able to provide for them? Is it the virtuous and principled that make it in life? Is it truly the ones who put in the most or who give it their best who are rewarded the most at workplaces? Or is it the crooked and connected that are laughing all the way to the leafy suburbs of this country and providing their families with only the best that money can provide?

Do good people stand a chance? Does goodness pay in Zimbabwe?

I am no football fanatic but events that surrounded the election of the president of the country’s football body, the Zimbabwe Football Association and the results thereof cannot go without me saying something as a citizen of this country.

There was a lot of noise everywhere in the country in recent months after it was revealed that in a country where one is counted lucky or blessed to even have a job that brings in an income monthly; some were so blessed that they were earning enough in one month to actually keep a whole company in these troubled economic times afloat.

Making US$200 000 for companies in these economically trying times is no easy feat but we do know of one executive who was earning much more than that monthly.

Close behind him were his team of executives, who could also afford to buy a house annually. While incomes will differ based on experience, qualifications, level of responsibility, profitability of business, among other factors; the whole thing becomes fishy when it starts to come out that people earned big while at the same time, the company was not performing.

I am sure everyone knows about the Premier Service Medical Aid Society saga by now.

There are jokes that are doing rounds where you have cartoon characters expressing a deep desire to “one day become employees of PSMAS” so they can earn big bucks.

All this; when we know medical doctors who are struggling simply because PSMAS has not been paying them for services rendered to members of the society. All this; even when members who contributed this money others were literally bathing in, could not access services at the end of the day.

The developments following the PSMAS expose, we have all witnessed.

Cabinet sat and afterwards announced a cap of US$6 000 on packages earned by the top men and women in companies to arrest the madness that was going on where most of them thought only of themselves and very little for service delivery and ordinary staff.

We now know these individuals who were living large and earning big. Fine, we do not begrudge them for what they benefited already because that is in the past now. However, we do not want to see them occupying another top public portfolio.

We do now want to hear about them. We think any of those found to have been doing illegal and underhand things should just go home and stay away from anything to do with public funds and national interest.

That is why it was shocking, not only for me; for I am not football savvy, but many around me, when Cuthbert Dube was re-elected as zifa president. I am not going to talk about football. That I will leave to the experts.

But I will talk about the public and national interest.

How do we have the same people that are being fingered in messy deals; who have proved to be selfish beyond measure handling or occupying public office?

Is there a shortage of good men and women in Zimbabwe? Normally judging other people is something I prefer not to do. Being imperfect myself, I know that the right to judge belongs to none other than the One who will stand in judgement of me come reckoning day.

But from what the people around me are saying, one can only wonder; “If this man is such a bad guy and no one wants him tainting whatever is national; who then elected him and why?”

What values do we look for in leaders? This is not to say leaders should be perfect because no one is perfect. But surely, there are some principles that we must look at? Or have we become so corrupt that even our thinking is tainted or blinded?

After all, it is the bad girls and bad boys we celebrate.

Those who have been at some point investigated for irregularities are often found in one board position after another. Someone once asked,

“Why do the same people occupy all the boards, commissions, panels; you name it?”

At some point it is almost as if being good does not pay at all. The people are disappointed. They simply cannot come to terms with it.
As Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo expressed outrage over the decision by zifa councillors to re-elect Cuthbert Dube, I am also doing thw same. Such choices are an outrage. What is truly behind some of these choices? For a couple of bucks, are we ready to forget our consciences? For the benefit of a few individuals, are we ready to sacrifice the majority?
Is there no honour in doing good anymore?  I truly beg to differ!

Make a difference by remaining good even when all else seem to have gone bad.

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