By Hopewell Chin’ono
A fire has gutted Zimbabwe’s biggest informal market, Mbare Musika the country’s economic hub.
Mbare is Zimbabwe’s oldest suburb, and Musika means market.
Zimbabwe has become an informal economy after years of mismanagement, massive plunder, and looting of public funds by the ruling elites.
The World Bank has stated that Zimbabwe’s economy is now 70 percent informal, making it higher than Bolivia, which previously had the highest level of informalisation.
This fire and its damage are very significant because each day the market is not operational, millions will be without a wage to take home.
The market trades between US$2 million and US$3 million daily, so every day that passes without this disaster being urgently addressed means millions are being lost.
Mbare Musika is a key economic network and institution, but the problem we face in our country is that the government neither trusts nor likes institutions that it can’t control.
This kind of accident could happen anywhere in the world, but it doesn’t because the states that run those countries protect such important institutions by ensuring there is a dedicated fire service for markets like this one.
We need to protect the institutions that matter to our economy by not only benefiting from their economic output but also providing institutional support to protect them from incidents like the one last night.
The government has never invested in these mechanisms, not just for Mbare but also for our cities.
When they have attempted to do so, protection was not the priority.
Instead, it was the president’s family that sought to profit from overpriced fire engines from Belarus.
When I talk about the consequences of corrupt rule, the plundering of the country’s natural resources, and the looting of public funds, this is what I am referring to.
I attended one of Zimbabwe’s most prestigious government schools of its time, Fletcher High School.
The first thing we were taught, if you paid attention, was about the Fire Guard around the school.
It protected the school from random fires caused by cigarette butts and other things, and this was back in the 1980s.
I went back to Fletcher last year to see how things had changed, and I was heartbroken because such precautions are no longer given attention.
As a student of the arts, I always understood that what you see on the ground reflects what is happening at the top, the leadership.
We no longer have leaders in government who care about these important issues.
Do our leaders even visit Mbare to see what is happening?
When was the last time the Zimbabwean tyrant, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was seen in Mbare or at the market to observe how it operates, given its significance as a major economic hub?
I leave you with one reminder, unless we respect institutions and provide them with the necessary support, we will continue facing this problem.
It would have been easier and cheaper to have proper fire control measures in place and deal with issues effectively when they arise.
Better yet, we should ensure we have a modern market, but our leaders simply don’t care.
Although we discuss these matters daily on this platform, they don’t listen.
Corruption has consequences.
If you were in doubt, Mbare Musika is your answer.
Mbare Musika’s informal nature and the government’s lack of investment in basic infrastructure, such as fire control measures, reflect a deeper issue of corruption and mismanagement which I always talk about here.
There were very few fire engines working to control the fire at Mbare Musika, they only had four fire engines.
Additionally, there were no water hydrants available at the market, this is basic infrastructure that should be there for an important place like Mbare Musika.
A group of Zimbabweans from the northern suburbs, called the Emergency Help Group, mobilised 100,000 litres of water last night, these were just ordinary citizens.
Where was the central government.
*Hopewell Chin’ono is a seasoned investigative journalist
