"Will implement fundamentals before scrapping multi-currency" - do in 6 months what failed in 10 years W Mukori

“One listener asked how the new currency would be sustained when there is no production. The president (Mnangagwa) said that he would not be cornered into revealing the stages that are to be followed until the local currency is introduced before year end,” reported Spotlight Zimbabwe.

“He, however, said that there are fundamentals that are to be met first before the currency is introduced. He said that these include improving production, minimising corruption and instilling confidence in the general populace. He assured further called upon the members of the public to withdraw from the panic mode as all fundamentals will be put in place before the new currency is introduced.”

The multi-currency was adopted back in November 2008, why has Zimbabwe failed to get these “fundamentals” right to this day? 

If anyone believes this regime will get the fundamentals right in the next six months when it has failed to do so in the last 10 years then they are really naive. Zanu PF will scrap the multi-currency that had help bring sanity after the chaos of the Z$ and the 500 billion % run-away inflation. Inflation has started to surge upward already and there is worse to come! 

The flood of investors Mnangagwa and Mthuli Ncube promised the nation have not materialised. How is the country going to increase production and productivity without investing in new equipment and building new industries? 

When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following the 15 November 2017 military coup, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”! A few weeks ago he admitted he had not done much to end corruption because it is “deep rooted”! And now he is talking of “minimising corruption”; he has given up.

In 2016 Former President Mugabe finally admitted the country was being “swindled out of US$15 billion in diamond revenue” alone. He never arrested one swindler nor recover one swindled dollar.  Mnangagwa has not done any better, he too has not arrested one swindler nor recover one swindled dollar. The Army and a Russian company, one of the big diamond swindling cartels, have just signed a new deal to extend their operation into platinum mining. 

Minimising corruption! How long is a piece of string! 

Mnangagwa, just like Mugabe before him, likes to give the impression that he is a great intellectual who KNOWS what he is doing. Sadly, he is not an intellectual at all. He is just an empty head who, by hook and by crook found himself in a very powerful position and absolute power has got to his head, so now he believes there is nothing he cannot do. He has blundered from pillar to post and yet he still believes he is God Almighty’s gift to the nation. We are well and truly caught in a trap and in serious trouble.  

“If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards,” argue Samuel Johnson. 

In Zimbabwe we have had to deal with not a madman but an army wielding AK47 rifles. Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs wielded their guns and shot dead 7 in August last year for daring to protest the rigged elections and 17 in January this year for daring to protest soaring fuel prices. 

I am not one given to gambling but would bet my bottom dollar Zimbabwe will scrap the multi-currency system and reintroduce single currency with no economic fundamentals in place to guarantee the currency’s stability!  Until the people of Zimbabwe finally do something to end the curse of rigged elections the nation will be stuck with this Zanu PF dictatorship and will blunder from pillar to post!