The leader of the Alliance for the People’s Agenda (APA) and former cabinet minister Nkosana Moyo has said that Zimbabwe’s economic problems will not get fixed until the country gets a president who prioritises economics over politics. Moyo also said the president needs to have experience in business in order to solve the economic problems. Said Moyo,
Generally speaking, saying I told you so is not a good thing, but I would like to use this event as a reminder of something we really need to understand. Minister Bernard Chidzero was a good and competent man. But as we all know, his political masters had no capacity to understand hence no commitment to implement what needed to be done. Another example I witnessed was Chinamasa when he was working in his area of competence. As minister for legal and parliamentary affairs he tried to be professional and do the right thing even towards MDC, but his masters only understood a political agenda. I mention these two cases to make Zimbabweans understand that until we have a head of state whose agenda is not politics first and economics a poor second and also has first-hand competence in business, we are unlikely to sort out our economic challenges.
All I can say is good luck to us all. We are in the dung!
The former minister was also highly critical of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya’s midterm monetary policy. He alleged that the governor is trying to fool people by insisting that the Bond Note is equal to the United States Dollar even after he had ordered banks to separate Nostro FCAs and RTGS FCAs. Said Moyo,
When the bond note was contemplated, we told the Governor that it was a very bad idea. I am sure now he knows he erred, but will not admit it. The idea of clearly demarcated accounts as dollar or bond is an obvious one. What that more clearly accepts is that the bond note and the dollar are not the same. Yet our dear Governor continues to try and pull wool over our eyes. He is separating the accounts because he knows they are not the same yet in the same breath he goes on to claim a 1:1 relationship! This would pass for comedy were it not about our lives.
More importantly, however, is that the separation of accounts would, in a world with good governance, allow for better management of real dollar inflows. In our world, however, where power, nepotism, cronyism and patronage rule, it is an exercise in futility. The connected, who did not bring a single dollar into the country will still get access to USDs and abuse them as they have always done. They have access to their Bond Notes which they use to convert a piece of valueless paper to real money. The Governor should know by now that he will not be able to stop them. The question then is why is he doing this?
The most incomprehensible action is the statutory reserves element of the monetary policy statement. We all know that the mistrust between the Government and Central Bank on the one hand and the citizens on the other has led to the disintermediation of banks by and large. Any liquidity in the economy is not being channelled through the banks. It is in the streets of Zimbabwe. The Governor is going to impose a 5% statutory reserve to mop up liquidity! By definition, this is statutory reserve applies to banks. I need someone much smarter than me to help me understand this one. My own opinion is that this is the governor’s equivalent to the Minister’s 2% transaction tax. Just as former Governor Gideon Gono raided FCAs, the incumbent Mangudya is raiding deposits to fund government spending. Sad that both men have from the get go started by trying to hoodwink the citizenry.
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