Great friends, I had missed you so much! Continuing from where we left off many days ago, let’s look at the story of Air Zimbabwe, my dear national airline.
Air Zimbabwe flew many International routes that included as far as Anthens, London, Frankfurt, Perth and Mauritius, realizing huge profits.But then, losses and debts began to increase to over $100 million and remained unacceptably high for the remainder of the last decade.Was it late last year or this year when one of the airplanes flew to Victoria Falls with only one passenger?This is how bad things became.
I am not an expert in Airline Business Management, but I am convinced that the downfall of Air Zimbabwe was primarily caused by the number one problem that we have in Africa: SELFISHNESS (I might elaborate more on that in a few days to come).
Most African leaders are very selfish and are NOT people of integrity. They lack the ability to stick to set principles regardless of circumstances. In a small space of 4 years, senior management at Air Zimbabwe had managed to steal up to $11 million that they secretly shared amongst themselves! Those who could have stopped the corruption simply looked aside. The magnitude of the corruption was so severe that an auditing company recommended not only criminal proceedings to be instituted against those implicated, but also that they must be brought to the attention of PRESIDENT MUGABE. How on earth could an airline management be so selfish to steal 11 million dollars?
The Bible is very serious about this issue. Remember Samuel, who presided as the High Priest of Israel for many years? As a leader, he refused to take anything not belonging to him. At the end of his term of office he also asked his fellow countrymen to identify anything that he had accumulated through the power of his office, and he would quickly and cheerfully return it! How many of our leaders today would do that? Think about it.
As a leader, it does not matter how much educated you are or what level of experience you may have in life, but if you have no integrity, people won’t follow you too far. They may follow you to a point, but when the going gets tough, they will start to look for another leader.
I have faith in my nation’s airline and I believe the government has now set up more effective strategies to strengthen the profitability of the airline. Above all, I pray that the new breed of leaders we have at the airline now are the right people – People of integrity and honesty, people we can trust.
