Harare East legislator Tendai Biti said Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube should resign because he does not understand the crisis the country is in, having been away for many years.
Biti made the remarks following Ncube’s leaked letter to the International Monetary Fund where he said Zimbabwe faces social upheavals due to the dire state of the economy caused partly by the government’s “missteps”.
In an interview with the Daily News, Biti said it will take years for Zimbabwe’s economy to recover from the damage inflicted by Ncube. Said Biti:
If you are employed and you fail to perform according to expectations, you should be fired from your post.
Both Mthuli and his boss (Mnangagwa) should do the honourable thing and resign.
The problem is that Mthuli doesn’t understand the crisis at hand. He has not lived in the country for many years and is, therefore … out of his depth.
… In fact, things are worse today than they were in 2007-2008. To undo what Mthuli has done to the economy will take years.
University of Zimbabwe Political Science lecturer Eldred Masunungure told the Daily News that the government should prepare itself for protests similar to those experienced in January 2019. He said:
What this means politically is that the government has to gear itself up for some form of revolt, something similar to the January 2019 protests.
Ncube may also have initially underestimated the gravity of the problem and the dynamics of the local political economy.
Mthuli is also not in the politburo and thus lacks the political muscle. He is too junior in Zanu PF to drive through what he wants to do.