By Zivanai Dhewa
Speaking during an interview with international broadcasting television, Bloomberg Surveillance, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube revealed that Zimbabwe is the cheapest buy in Africa.
Bloomberg anchor Tom Keene, sought clarification from Prof Ncube on the current pattern of mathematics of fiscal Africa vis a vis Zimbabwe in the next five years.
“Zimbabwe is certainly on its way to a better place on the fiscal front because we are managing to walk the talk we are balancing the budget we have recorded a fiscal surplus averaging 100million dollars a month for the last four month since we last met so things are looking good. This is stabilising the currency as well. I did say last time that Zimbabwe is the cheapest buy in Africa it has just gotten cheaper because we have instituted the Monetary Policy Reforms, we have domestic currency it is floating we are back in the game again.
Prof Ncube further explained how government has put up measures to curb corruption and improve governance in Zimbabwe’s economy.
“We are tough on corruption, we are determined to improve on governance, and we have made an incredible progress in dealing with our state owned enterprises.
“We have for instance separated the GMB into two separate entities one that is government controlled and one that is commercial that will go a long way in cleaning up the governance of that institution,” he said
Minister Ncube added saying, “We have also rebundled ZESA which is our electricity supply utility company into one entity which used to be five entities and again we are cleaning the governance around that institution it will be more efficient and will result in better service delivery.
“All the way through we are improving governance and also tough on corruption, but also shinning the torch on corruption, recently we removed the anti-corruption commission and nominating new members and strengthening and allow it to do its job,” he added.
Francine Lacqua, Bloomberg’s London anchor, further enquired on the new currency in Zimbabwe and whether going forward the government would be in a position to disclose the volume of trade on the currency.
In response, Prof Ncube said, “Absolutely we have to disclose, that is the key to the understanding of market micro structure. Also government will not be a participant in the market itself, we want to allow the market to participate. We will stay out of the market otherwise we will distort the market.
Minister Ncube further disclosed trade in the past week, “Last week we traded 7.5million round about there this was just the beginning remember that for the last ten years Zimbabwe had a fixed currency regime 1:1 with the dollar, so the trading has started and it can only get better.
“We are also trying to improve the market micro-structure and architecture of that market and we see it improve quite a bit over time and begin to fluctuate properly, it has allowed us to also introduce proper Monetary Policy, interest rate policy, we start with targeting reserve money or high powered money a growth of about 10% and then eventually move towards inflation targets,” he added.
Meanwhile, Minister Ncube has met up with an American company, General Electrics which bid to build a huge power project on the Zambezi River in a joint venture with a Chinese company.
