Dr Nkosana Moyo, leader of Alliance for the People’s Agenda (APA), spoke to The Standard editor Obey Manayiti. In the interview, Moyo was asked his views on Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s ability to turn around the economy. Moyo said that evidence suggests that Ncube does not know what he is doing.
On what he would do differently from the past and current regime if, given the opportunity, Moyo said:
Close to 40 years we have been fed that Zimbabwe has been destroyed by sanctions. Firstly, the sanctions were put because we took over our farms but the manner in which we did that, of killing people is the one that called for sanctions. We need to understand that sanctions were applied to Zimbabwe but we need to understand why they were applied.
When you take an action you must assess how other people are going to react. If you are not strong enough don’t do things that are going to make you killed unless if you believe in martyrdom. A leader has a right to decide on martyrdom on behalf of the whole population.
So we need to understand that President Mugabe’s methodology of implementing land redistribution was not smartly thought-out and that is why sanctions were applied.
Secondly, in my opinion, what has destroyed Zimbabwe is not sanctions even as I concede that sanctions by their nature are meant to hurt but we need to understand they were applied in aptitude of our lack of strategic thinking.
More importantly, this country has been destroyed by us as Zimbabweans and not by sanctions and two elements in particular — corruption which is at the top of this administration and assembling the best brains in Cabinet.