Zimbabweans, are we ready for success?

In this article, I navigate the challenges that I believe are slowing down progress in Zimbabwe. Most of these challenges, are drawn from my own experiences in developed vs developing countries and I believe it will take a while for Zimbabwe to progress unless if these challenges are addressed.

1. “Black men time”. It is still an acceptable custom that one can be up to few hours late for work and for meetings. This ranges from formal meetings to meetings with friends and family members, there is always a “valid” excuse. This is commonly known as BMT. However, the idea of black men time is frowned upon in developed countries. Once, I walked into my 9:00 am class at 9:00 am and this was considered being late because you are only early if you walk in at least 5 mins before the scheduled time. The importance of this is you learn to value everyone’s time including your own time. You live by the minute and not by the hour, which technically is the same thing-but still a different mentality. Every minute is put to good use and besides, being on time for events is a sign of respect for your peers too!
2. lack of work ethic in the work place. Many people in the work place have become content with doing minimal work just to get through the day. The culture is, last in, first out. Not to mention the extended lunch and tea breaks, and self assigned breaks. While it might not seem directly beneficial, in the longterm, the rewards of being proactive, responsible and hardworking in the workplace, is a more developed country.
3. Corruption. This is an issue with the Zimbabwean government itself, politicians in power, individuals, and also police officers. How does 15 billion dollars disappear from a country without being accounted for? Where was the central bank when these transactions were made? Where were the auditors? Moreover, when I returned home this summer, I personally witnessed bank officials suggest that customers pay illegal fees to withdraw their own money from the banks, and for years I have witnessed police officers ask for illegal on spot fee payments during road blocks. Most people are taking advantage of their positions in order to earn money illegally. I could never fully exhaust this point because there have been way too many cases of injustice which call for action.
4. Disrespect in the work place: Not paying wages, over working workers involuntarily, designing schedules which are not practical and leaving workers with no choice, Issues of sexual and verbal abuse in the work place are becoming way too common.
5. Patriarchy and inflexibility. Some companies have started to accommodate woman in the work place by providing nursery schools on site with all costs covered. This has allowed most women to be more productive in the work place. This is obviously not very practical with the current economic barriers in the country. However, we all know that even if company X would affords to do so, it will hardly consider it. Instead, they would rather just not hire women, and avoid the costs, because I mean “should women even be burdening us by going to work anyway?”
6. Documentation commotion; Apparently, signatures are so important! I have an example of a friend who needed an official’s signature in order to carry out a project that would benefit the city. It took her 3 months to get her documents signed, and this is why; She arrived when the boss was on a self assigned tea break and he could not sign the papers then. She had to drop off the papers and come back after two weeks. After the two weeks had passed, she was told to come back after 1 more week instead because they hadn’t gotten a chance to review the documents yet(to do their work?!) 3 weeks passed only to learn she had to drop them off to a different office because they decided they couldn’t confirm anything. No follow up calls before then. Hardly responsive when you make the follow up calls yourself. At some point, documents were lost and it all dragged for months. Now all this could be avoided by a proper, established system as well as a culture whereby the customer is the priority. Clear rules and follow up calls stay wining too. Too much commotion and less effort always puts off Interested parties.
7. Selfishness when in Power. Distributing positions to relatives when in power, and not willing to let go of positions when there are people who have potential of making better choices than you are all examples of selfishness. This is the culture in some companies. There are also farms and resources that were acquired and distributed to one family which are now lying idle. Families in power are claiming all management positions not necessarily because the family members are the most skilled but because of self interests.
8. Power dynamics in Crime. “Excusing” offenses when one is in power. Many people have gotten away with crime because they are in power. Examples of crime being theft, power abuse, and assault. Certainly the world would be a better place if each one of us, could face the consequences of their actions regardless of who they are on the social ladder. And maybe, this would motivate most people to stay on track too.
9. Ghost Email Accounts: Since technology is still a challenge, this one is most applicable to companies and institutes we all know have access to both laptops and internet. This one is from personal experience too: On behalf of an organization, you desperately need to communicate with a company or a university’s administration staff back home. You send an important email today, you continue to follow up for the following weeks, still no response. Is there anyone there? Well, in most cases you are lucky if you even found the Information Center’s email address, phone number, Facebook details or any form of contact details on their website anyway, because surprisingly, company and university email addresses/phone numbers are so private!

This is all I have for now. Let us continue to discuss and share these challenges so that we can look out for them and address them as soon as they arise in the future. What have been your own disputes in the workplace?