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Open"Mthuli Ncube Is A Sellout. Sadly, Not The Only One - Part 2"
Lawyer Tinomudaishe Chinyoka says Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has abandoned his responsibility to grow the economy, instead focusing on taxing Zimbabweans “to the bone.”
Chinyoka also criticised Ncube for allowing the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to maintain and expand its power to make policy decisions, which he argued is not a requirement of central bank independence.
According to Chinyoka, Ncube’s move is not about adhering to economic principles but about creating an alibi — someone else to blame when things go wrong.
Approximately two weeks ago, Chinyoka shared Part One of a post on X (formerly Twitter), titled “Mthuli Ncube Is A Sellout. Sadly, Not The Only One.” On February 20, he posted Part Two of his opinion piece, presented below:
Again, I repeat, just because I support the ruling party and the President does not mean that I cannot point out things that are wrong with where we are going. This country is headed in the wrong direction.
The truth is, the President’s Vision 2030 (the correct one, about Zimbabwe achieving Middle-Income status by that year and not the delusional wet dreams of those pushing the so-called Resolution 1 because they have no future in a post-ED dispensation), that Vision 2030, is quite simply NOT GOING to happen. No chance.
And much of the blame, if not all, lies on [Treasury]. And the Minister, [Mthuli Ncube] who was imported from Switzerland precisely to shepherd Treasury for the attainment of Vision 2030.
And, in order to make the task easier, the President’s team crafted the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), which when you read it is a thoroughly insightful and cerebral blueprint which was guaranteed to deliver Vision 2030.
Instead, Mthuli went off on a tangent. Rather than focus on growing the economy by giving leadership to the market, crafting pro-growth budgets, influencing interest rates, providing a safe investment environment, encourage borrowing for business investments, stimulate consumer spending, simplifying the tax code implementing ease of doing business measures, Mthuli has instead decided that the sole purpose of Treasury is to tax people to the bone.
His 2% transaction tax has done untold damage to the formal sector and driven people to hide money in their mattresses rather than bank it, and his lax regulation of bank charges punishes those who can’t use their mattress.
He has allowed the [Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe] to maintain and gain further powers to make policy (not their job) not because that is what central bank independence requires, but because he needs an alibi – someone else to blame when things don’t work.
And, because folks at the central bank aren’t exactly clean themselves, they like this arrangement just fine because they too have him as their alibi.
The first few years of his tenure the President was touring huge infrastructure projects and we took pride in the fact that local companies were delivering on them.
The Masvingo to Beitbridge highway was going to truly become Jonah Moyo’s Masvingo ne Carpet from either end, but now whole sections have been abandoned because contractors were not being paid, and when they did get paid, it was in the mismanaged ZiG months after the invoice date meaning that the payments were always a fraction of the cost.
Mthuli is a sellout but he is not the only one. Why are people taking the President to Pomona dump site and Ken Sharpe’s scandal-ridden projects in wetlands or stadiums with no toilets instead of the signature projects that are either abandoned or have slowed down due to non-payment?
Where is that $5 billion platinum mega-deal he opened a few years back? Where are we with Gwayi Shangani? Where is the Chitowa dam project meant to create a huge lake on the Save River?
Why is Mthuli paying the IMF and white farmers ahead of local companies that are actually doing something to deliver the President’s agenda?
Which section of NDS1 is achievable by boasting at Davos that you are taxing poor people to the bone while not paying the people actually doing something to develop Zimbabwe through NDS1? Which policy proposal in the budget directly drives towards NDS1 and Vision 2030?
Mthuli is good at one thing and one thing only: creating and maintaining a tax regime that is not only inimical to fostering economic growth, but one guaranteed to ensure that when the President says “Zimbabwe is open for business” everyone knows he is lying.
Vision 2039 is not achievable because Mthuli abandoned the entire thinking behind the President’s NDS1. Now, if that is not deliberate sabotage against his Principal’s Vision 2030, what is it?
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