TITLE:
The Garrison Shops for the Security Sector in Zimbabwe: Financing Mechanisms and Military Budgets
AUTHORS:
Lovemore Mwale, Gorden Moyo
KEYWORDS:
Financing Mechanism, Garrison Shops, Military Expenditures, COVID-19, Zimbabwe
JOURNAL NAME:
iBusiness,
Vol.13 No.1,
March
31,
2021
ABSTRACT: This think piece discusses the proposed policy on
garrison shops designed for the members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to
purchase subsidised groceries in their barracks, camps and cantonments. In
mulling this policy intervention, the ruling executive-military alliance led by President Emmerson
Mnangagwa was responding to the dire economic and social problems faced by the
ordinary soldiers and police officers. It is common cause that the country is
currently going through an economic recession that is adversely impacting on the ordinary Zimbabweans and the ordinary soldiers and police officers have
not been spared. Notably, compared to their bosses, the rank and file officers’
incomes are far below the poverty datum line. The article, therefore, sets out to discuss the
drivers, financing mechanisms and military budgets so as to locate the efficacy
of the proposed garrison shops in the Government of
Zimbabwe’s efforts to alleviate the plight of the security services sector. It
concludes by gesturing towards the future of targeted, purposive, quantified
and budgeted subsidies which benefit the poor, vulnerable and well-deserving
cases against the current rent seeking subsidies in the security sector in
Zimbabwe.