Of all the feeble excuses proffered by this Zanu PF regime
for ending the use of the multi-currency basket in favour of the local currency
as the only legal tender; Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube’s excuse
takes the biscuit! Sanctions!
“There were certain banks that were told to stop supplying US
dollars to Zimbabwe because certain transactions would involve entities in
Zimbabwe that are under sanctions.,” he explained.
“CBZ was fined US$350 million for doing some transactions
where they thought they were helping and we are still negotiating a way out of
that liability.
“Therefore the more we used US dollar, the more we expose the
transactors and businesses to fines.”
China, South Africa and Botswana have not imposed any targeted
sanctions on anyone or any company in Zimbabwe so why did the Minister end the
trade in the US$ and British Pound and retained local trade in the Yuan, Rand
and Pula?
The truth is the regime hurriedly enacted Statutory
Instrument (SI) 142 banishing the basket of other foreign currency as legal
tender to impose the local currency as the only legal tender to forestall the
growing trend by traders and workers refusing to be paid in the local currency
and demanding to be paid in the stable foreign currencies instead. The local
currency had been losing its value as inflation has risen from about 10% in
January 2019 to 97% at the time SI 142 was enacted.
Having impose the local currency as legal tender, government
has been able to meet its soaring expenditure by printing more money at a time
when its revenue has been sinking because to reduced economic activity due to the
savage up to 19 hours a day power cuts, cyclone Idai, drought, etc. Printing
money has solved one problem but created an even bigger problem – it has fuelled
inflation. Since the passing of SI 142 inflation has soared from 97% to 175%,
almost double in three weeks!
The hyperinflation gene is out of the bottle, there is no
putting it back! Zimbabweans remember only too well the hyperinflation of 2000
to 2008 when inflation peaked at 500 billion % and the local currency was not
even the paper it was printed on, at Z$ 35 quadrillion (35x10^24) = US$1.00. Most
economic activity seized, it was impossible to do business and be paid in a
currency who value was disappearing like water poured in the desert sand. It
was not worthwhile going to work, shop shelves were empty and finding enough to
eat and other essentials was a nightmare. We are heading for those 2008 nightmare
days again!
The Z$ was scrapped and the multicurrency as legal tender was
introduced in November 2008 to restore confidence in a stable currency. One
only hopes that sanity will prevail and the stable currency reintroduced long
before inflation hit the dizzying height of 2008 and survival is once again
near impossible!
Professor Mthuli Ncube himself said he would not impose the Z$ before "the economic fundamentals to ensure a stable currency were in place". Some of these fundamentals included ending corruption and reviving the country's production. He must have convinced Mnangagwa of the same because he repeated the same assurance when he was in Mozambique.
ReplyDeleteThe following week, SI 142 was enacted. It was rushed through to forestall the rejection of the local currency whose value was already in free fall. Without the economic fundamentals in place it is no surprise that inflation has been growing exponentially, the gene is out of the bottle alright.
The regime can witter all it likes and come up with all manner of feeble excuses the reality on the ground will not change one bit - inflation will continue to soar. The idea that a country can ever have a stable local currency when the country continues to haemorrhage wealth through corruption, bleeding from the jugular vein, as Zimbabwe is doing; is a fallacy.
Professor Mthuli Ncube compromised when he accepted the job as Minister of Finance knowing fulling well the Zanu PF regime was illegitimate because it had just blatantly rigged the elections. Being appointed Minister fired his ego and blinded him to the reality that he was now part to a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime. He could not do anything to stop the corruption because he knew everyone in Zanu PF was corrupt and Mnangagwa and his cabinet were the Godfathers of corruption. So, corruption was ring fence as a no go area for Minister Mthuli Ncube.
He could not end the gross mismanagement because he could not fire the Zanu PF deadwood in every sector; another no go area. He could not stop the criminal waste of resource on such things as hiring private jet, out of the country health trips for the ruling elite, etc.; another ringfence no-go area. The only area Minister Ncube could work on was to tax the poorest of the poor and he did that with a relish! But that was never going to be enough to revive the comatose economy.
Of course, Professor Ncube sold-out his very soul in agreeing to work for this illegitimate, corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical regime. Having supported the ill-advised enactment of SI 142, the Professor is now having to try to come up with some excuse why he did it. There is no rational reason for a stupid decision and hence his attempt to blame it on sanctions is such a feeble excuse.
How has the mighty fallen! He was so cocksure when he arrive but Mthuli Ncube is not so cocky now, he knows his name is mud!
Norton MP Temba Mliswa (independent) has threatened to drag government to court to force it to improve the welfare of MPs by providing them with vehicles and increase their salaries.
ReplyDeleteRaising a point of privilege in the National Assembly yesterday, Mliswa said lawmakers had been neglected by the Executive and he was now taking the matter to the Constitutional Court to force the state to act.
"The welfare of parliamentarians must be taken seriously madam speaker. When the Executive makes an undertaking, they must fulfil it. Madam Speaker, I am going to approach the Constitutional Court to ensure that this matter is dealt with. The salaries of MPs have not changed and the cost of living has gone up," Mliswa said.
Yes, MP Mliswa last time you were demanding that MP must be served five course meals in a country where ¾ of the population now live on US$30 per month or less! You may be an independent MP now, but you are a corrupt, incompetent and selfish Zanu PF thug through and through!
Information minister, Monica Mutsvangwa has denied ever being involved in shutting down the internet during the national shutdown.
ReplyDeleteResponding to a question at a discussion in Bulawayo today, Mutsvangwa said she has hopes that the country will not return to era of shutting down internet on citizens.
Yeah right, believe that and you will believe the sun rises from the West and sets in the East! The regime promised to hold free and fair elections and went on to blatantly rig the elections! The regime is illegitimate and should not even be in power!
Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube seems to be doing everything by the book as he pursues orthodox economic policy often prescribed by the global “Bretton Woods” lending institutions to try and turn around a sickly economy.
ReplyDeleteThe government is running a budget surplus for the first time in years and has stopped runaway money-printing, which led to hyperinflation of 500 billion percent in 2008.
This is nonsense, when has IMF and WB encouraged corruption? Corruption is rampant in Zimbabwe and Minister Ncube has not taxed the looters much less stop it!
Government has just awarded civil servants a 40% pay increase at a time when government revenue has been drying up. The only way government is going to finance the increased expenditure is by printing money. “Government is running a budget surplus!” what a truck load of bull!
How much has China looted from Zimbabwe? Everyone knows that China has been involved in the wholesale looting that has been going on in Zimbabwe for decades. Mugabe booted the Chinese out and when the dictator was booted out himself, the Chinese returned and took up the looting from where they left off!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be no end in sight for Zimbabwe’s economic woes. Official statistics have projected that the country’s manufacturing sector will grow by a mere 1% in 2019.
ReplyDeleteThe dismal outlook has been attributed to drought, power outages and shortage of foreign currency.
Zimbabwe used to boast a well-integrated and diversified industrial sector, but over the past two decades, suffered massive de-industrialisation and rapid informalisation.
Henry Ruzvidzo, President of Zimbabwe Confederation of Industries says generators should be repaired at Hwange.
“On the energy front, we have a crisis and I think we need to take serious actions to address that; which include repairing the generators at Hwange, investment perhaps speeding up the projects Hwange seven and eight that are scheduled to come in two to three years; if there was a way of bringing them forward so that we can start generating power sooner it will help.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to revitalise an economy seems to be taking a nose-dive, with the latest inflation figures showing that Zimbabwe might returned back to hyper-inflation.
The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of June 2019 rose sharply to 175% from 97% in May.
For the consumers, the continued increase in prices of basic commodities and the shortages in the energy sector are quickly eroding the hope for a better economy.
Zimbabwe has people like Henry Ruzvidzo who will talk and talk about everything things else except the elephant in the room – the fact that we have a pariah state. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs the country will never achieve any meaningful economic recovery. Having individuals in position of power who are as blind as mole to this reality is not helping the country recover.
“Civil servants are not asking for a salary increment, but rather restoration of the value of their earnings, which fell from at least US$475 to a mere US$47 currently for the lowest paid civil servant,” read part of the workers’ petition.
ReplyDeleteThe government on Tuesday offered a 50% increase to July’s pay as a cushioning allowance that will then be replaced by a monthly cost-of-living adjustment that would amount to $116,50 (US$13.20) per person per month, said the Apex Council of unions representing government workers.
Public sector workers had wanted a wage increase of at least $475 a month for the lowest paid.
President Mnangagwa promised free, fair and credible elections and went on to blatantly rig the elections. He was cocksure he would deliver economic recovery especially after appointing the flamboyant and cocky Professor Mthuli Ncube as Minister of Finance. The Professor assured Mnangagwa and all who cared to listen that he would attract investors and have international financial houses like IMF and WB bankrolling the country’s economic recovery; everything he touches will turn to gold.
There have been no investors, the IMF and WB has not given Zimbabwe a single dollar and the Nutty Professor’s economic policies has reignited Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs; no one wants to do business with thugs. Anyone who believes even for one minute that a pariah state can have economic recovery is stupid and naïve.
Civil servants have a grime choice go on strike or starve to death!
Harare, Zimbabwe (CNN)A recent drought in Zimbabwe has left more than two million people unable to access clean water, according to officials.
ReplyDeleteLast month, the country’s two major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, announced they had started a water rationing program which would see residents accessing tap water only once a week. The two cities combined have a population of more than two million people.
In recent years, Harare municipality has been battling against low water quality due to a critical shortage of purifying chemicals, which cost in excess of USD$3 million per month, water engineers said.
Zimbabwe has done nothing to solve its power, health, road, water, food, etc. problems for the last 39 years and now the chickens are coming home to roost!
Some idiots would not even talk of these problems because the viewed doing so as being “unpatriotic”! They swept the problems under the carpet and pretended everything was fine. Most of these idiots are not in Zimbabwe themselves because even a village idiot would know there was nothing to be proud of living on US$ 30 per month or less, no clean water, 19 hours a day every day power cuts, no health care, etc., etc.
Worse of all these economic problems are all man-made problems, they are the product of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. Sweeping them under the carpet has only allowed the misrule to get worse and those most vociferous about the problems being swept under the carpet are the ones benefiting from the mismanagement and corruption and do not want free, fair and credible elections because they will be booted out of power.
When patriotism is being peddled to justify misrule and bad governance it is just another form of deceit and only idiots fall for it. The nation stands to gain nothing from having millions suffering and dying in dumb anguish whilst the few ruling elite live in palatial mansions and unparalleled luxury. Where is the patriotism in that!
Minister Chasi confirmed ZESA tariff will go up soon.
ReplyDeleteThis is crisis management at its worst! Increasing ZESA power tariff, long over due many would agree, will invite a fresh increase in the price of commodities, a fresh demand in wage increases, etc. all putting inflation even higher than the present 179%. So ZESA will be back asking for an increase in the tariff and the whole vicious cycle step up a gear. This is just madness!
Government must tame inflation or step down!
This is a circus; the Minister said passports will be printed in three weeks and we all know we have not heard the end of the saga!
ReplyDeleteGovernment, through Agribank has secured a US$10,5 million facility for irrigation equipment and machinery under the Pedstock Centre Pivots Irrigation Facility (Phase 2) from Spain, which will benefit both large and small-scale farmers, as the country moves to improve productivity.
ReplyDeleteThe development comes at a time when the Government recently secured two facilities worth US$102 million with the Belarusian government and John Deere to end the over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture and produce all-year-round.
No prize for guessing who the chief beneficiary of these loans are! The chefs, but of course. They got the former white owned farms, the land plus all the assets for which they paid owner or government nothing (the tax payer is to pay the white farmers the compensation). The chefs have ruck in millions of dollars in the various schemes to assist farmers; a fraction of the money was repaid if at all. It was no surprise to hear of Thokosana Khope, MDC-T president, talk of taking delivery of a brand new tractor although she did not
have a farm. This is just one more such scheme!
The looting continues! O saque continua!
Chairman Dengs was wasting his time advising Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe tyrant does not know the difference between fact and truth and so all this talk of “seeking the truth from facts and implementing practical policies,” was all Chinese to Mugabe.
ReplyDeleteThose who believed that theNovember 2017 military coup would change Zimbabwe were naive and time has confirm this. Mnangagwa is a ruthless tyrant with even less functioning brain cells than Mugabe. His posturing around claiming "Zimbabwe is open for business!" when all that had changed was the removal of Mugabe showed the man had no idea what a mess Zimbabwe was in!
ReplyDeleteWith inflation at a staggering 179% and increasing exponentially the civil servants will be back demanding more. This is a stupid game that the workers are losing no matter what! Things are even worse to those on fixed income such as pension of life-savings and worst of all those with no income.
ReplyDeleteIf is for government to tame inflation and not anyone else and since this regime has clearly failed to do this, it must step down!
The last GNU failed to implement even one democratic reforms and thus allowing Zanu PF to continue the vote rigging hence the reason we are still in this mess. MDC are desperate to join Zanu PF in another GNU for the sake of getting back on the gravy train. They will never implement the reforms.
ReplyDeleteWhat Zimbabwe needs is for Zanu PF to step down to create the political space for the appointment of an interim administration that will be entrusted the task of implementing the reforms and holding free, fair and credible elections.
Zanu PF rigged last year's elections and asking the party to step down is the very least we should demand given rigging elections is high treason! For the last 39 years we have allow Zanu PF to rig elections and rewarded the party with absolute power and look where that landed the nation.
If we are serious about wanting to get out of the hell-on-earth we are in then what better way of demonstrating to Zanu PF and the world at large that we are ready for change than taking the tough decision of say no to those who rig elections! The world is ready to help Zimbabwe if we can prove we now know what we want and will fight for it and are no longer the sloppy and easily cheated electorate of yesteryears.
Mnangagwa was cocksure his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" call will open the flood gate to new investment and economic boom. Just like Mugabe before him was cocksure his "scientific socialism and gutsa ruzhinji (mass prosperity)" was going to make Zimbabwe the envy of the world. Their self-assured arrogance was second only to their incompetence, greed and insatiable appetite for absolute power.
ReplyDeleteAfter 37 years as Mugabe's henchmen in which Mnangagwa distinguished himself for his corruption and murderous barbarism only the political novices believed he was going to revive Zimbabwe's fortunes after the November 2017 coup. The very fact that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans including the opposition, Tsvangirai left his sick bed in SA in huff confident he was going to be given a senior post in the new Mnangagwa regime, only goes to show what a nation of political green-horns we are.
Mnangagwa rigged last year's elections, his regime is illegitimate and instead of telling him to step down we are wringing our collective fingers trying to come up with a formula to appease him and hopeful bring about some changes to end the economic meltdown. We are hoping for a formula to revive the economy whilst allowing the Zanu PF dictatorship to remain untouched.
Of course, that is wishful thinking because the two are mutually exclusive. We cannot have economic prosperity side by side with the criminal waste of the nation's human and material resources! By choosing to keep the dictatorship to appease Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies we have, necessarily, elected to allow the criminal waste of resources to continue and with it the abject poverty.
In the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the equally corrupt and incompetent MDC opposition, we have the government we deserve! We have done nothing deserve better!
The late Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary-General) had this to say about the utility of truth commissions: "They can establish the facts about past crimes, they can give victims a voice and a claim of effective redress; they can establish an authoritative narrative of the past; and they can propose measures to avoid the recurrence of human rights abuses. The last point is especially important, but frequently overlooked".
ReplyDeleteThere is no denying that both Mugabe and now Mnangagwa have set up commissions of inquiry and body to deal with Gukurahundi as a way of kicking the can down the road and avoiding dealing with the matter. Mnangagwa must release the Chihambakwe and Dumbutshena reports without any further ado.
Whatever professional credibility Professor Mthuli Ncube had before he was appointed Minister of Finance, he has lost it all. His name is Mudd! Professor Ncube has blundered from pillar to post ever since he became Minister.
ReplyDeleteIt is not so much that he made mistakes but rather that he sold-out. He knew well enough that corruption was the biggest problem in Zimbabwe, for example, but chose to ignore it because he also knew that the Zanu PF ruling elite would never allow him to touch it. So he has been trying to revive Zimbabwe’s economy by addressing the peripheral issues like taxing the street vendors whilst doing nothing about those looting millions of dollars every month from the nation’s resources and coffers.
Mnangagwa was banking on Professor Ncube sell-out his professionalism for the sake of the prestigious appointment. Ncube sold-out without a moment’s hesitation. Ncube was not the first one to sell out, there are many, many others who did the same notably Professor Walter Kamba and the later Bernard Chidzero.
“Mr. Tewolde Gebre Mariam is a titan of the aviation industry. As Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines he presides over the fastest growing and most profitable airline in Africa. He began his career in the Cargo Traffic Handling Department at the company when he joined thirty years ago and rose up the ranks through overseas management, Marketing and Sales to Chief Operating Officer before his appointment as CEO.” There is one story of a professional who saved his country and saved it well by refusing to compromise his professional values to please the corrupt ruling elite!
Zimbabwe is in this s***t hole because the country has had the great misfortune of having more than its fair share of professionals who have sold-out their professional values and senses for thirty pieces of silver. Well Professor Ncube must now know that he may as well start calling himself Professor Mthuli Ncube Mudd because after this fcuk up that is his name!