Renaming Vic Falls won’t put food on the table

Editorial Comment
ONE of the outstanding resolutions passed at the Zanu PF 14th national people’s conference was to rename Victoria Falls and schools with colonial names

ONE of the outstanding resolutions passed at the much hyped Zanu PF 14th national people’s conference was to rename Victoria Falls and schools with colonial names after some of the country’s heroes.

The resolution, sponsored by the party’s committee on sports, culture, religion and liberation, is another clear advertisement that Zanu PF is running out of ideas.

From the outset, we have to be clear we are not clamouring for the retention of relics of colonialism, lest those who think they have a monopoly to patriotism start sharpening their knives.

But we would like to remind Zimbabweans that Zanu PF has been in power since 1980 and has had all the time to “indiginise” places such as Victoria Falls and schools with colonial names.

Instead of pushing the decolonialisation agenda, the party’s leaders were busy enriching themselves and running the country down.

Zimbabwe now has very serious problems that confront its people such that the renaming of Victoria Falls becomes a very peripheral issue.

There were huge expectations ahead of the Zanu PF conference, simply because it was a gathering of the country’s sole ruling party.

People expected to hear what their government was doing to ease the cash shortages that have seen depositors failing to access their money from banks ahead of the festive season.

Thousands were thrown out of employment this year alone largely due to Zanu PF policies that are out of step with modern ways of doing business and the expectation was that the party would emerge from Chinhoyi with a clear plan to restore the economy.

However, as the resolution to change the name of the Victoria Falls demonstrates, what came out of the conference was populist rhetoric that does not put food on the table for long suffering Zimbabweans.

Besides changing names of places such as Victoria Falls — a magnet for tourists — would not come cheap for Zimbabwe’s bankrupt government.

The government has more pressing needs such as getting food to millions of people who are facing starvation and providing healthcare to the poor.

Trying to sidetrack citizens from real issues by coming up with such resolutions would not help anyone.