Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The recurrent presence of multiple roadblocks on roads in the country is a result of deep lying structural problems within the Zimbabwean state, according to a political analyst.
Alex Magaisa, a former advisor to Morgan Tsvangirai when he was Prime Minister during the GNU says the changes have not been obvious to the eye but they are the reasons for the eyesore.
Writing in his blog, the Big Saturday Read Magaisa says “the source of the problem is structural and it is to be found in the manner in which the Zimbabwean state and its organisational structure has been evolving over the years”.
“These changes have not been obvious to the ordinary eye but they are important and ought to be addressed by the political actors aspiring to lead Zimbabwe into the future”.
Magaisa who is a lecturer of law at Kent University in the United Kingdom says the scourge for the parasitic presence of ZRP officers waiting to fleece drivers has been called out by various scholars before.
“Scholars have in the last couple of decades identified what is often referred to as the disaggregation of the state”
“(This is) a process by which in one sense, functions that were formerly executed directly by the central government are parcelled out to independent agencies, private actors, as well as local and transnational networks”
“Instead of the centralised state being the sole source of power, power is instead located in multiple points both within and outside the jurisdiction”
According to the renowned analyst there are many factors and processes that have contributed to this disaggregation of the state, including the privatisation of formerly public entities, so that service that used to be provided directly by the state would now be provided by private actors.
Magaisa says in this state regulation which would have emanated directly from the state would now be provided by independent agencies, private actors and transnational networks.
The issues of roadblocks has remained a huge obstacle to travel even after the courts ruled that the conduct of police is unlawful and it has also been admitted under oath by the head of police and the Minister of Home Affairs.
The practice has degenerated into a farce of law keeping as they are now seemingly on fundraising missions where every stopped car is always found to have something faulty to pay over.
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