Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president, Denford Mutashu said that Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s austerity measures were mistimed and were always going to create hardships without external budgetary support.
Mutashu stated that the austerity measures have managed to create an unhappy business, civil service, workers and consumers. He said:
There is an urgent need to arrest critical economic ills like the ongoing electricity challenges, the water crisis in urban areas, the fuel situation and the liquidity environment.
The austerity measures may have been mistimed as it was always going to be difficult to implement them without external and internal budgetary support towards the provision of social safety nets, to cushion the marginalised on the lower social strata.
The danger the Finance chief (Mthuli Ncube) was always going to face, which is happening now … was to create an unhappy business, civil service, workers and consumers through an austerity journey that the economy was not ready for.
Meanwhile, a politicals analyst, Maxwell Saungweme told the Daily News that the crises obtaining in the country are a clear sign that those in power are lost on how to deal with the current social challenges. He said:
What is happening is a clear manifestation that the current leadership of the country has no clue and can’t arrest the economic and social challenges.
All things are too big and sophisticated for them, and they are reverting to Zanu PF’s normal default … of arresting citizens and human rights defenders.
We simply don’t have people with a clue of the change needed to take Zimbabwe forward.
They continue to diagnose the economic challenges wrongly and overdose the economy with wrong prescriptions. Unless they change course, nothing will change for the better.