The Garrison Shops for the Security Sector in Zimbabwe: Financing Mechanisms and Military Budgets

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.