by Elijah Chihota
The orgy of violence which rocked Harare, Chitungwiza and Bulawayo among other centres this week was meant to put a damper on revamping the economy. The MDC and its surrogates of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) together with the labour body, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) were determined to bring anarchy in the country.
Instead of solving the issues surrounding the reviving of the country’s economy, the MDC and the ZCTU chose to go on a nationwide shutdown thereby grinding any economic activity to a halt. They urged all workers to down their tools starting on Monday and that they should stay at home. However, there was a sad development as the so called peaceful shutdown turned violent with looting of TM and Choppies supermarkets as well as tuck shops.
Burning and looting became the order of the day until security forces stepped in to stop the mayhem.
The ZCTU was demanding that workers should be paid their salaries in US dollars. All people will agree that it is not possible at this time to do that. At the moment Government is seized with accessing foreign currency to purchase fuel, electricity and medical drugs among other essential goods and services. Therefore, it should be noted that all the foreign currency collected through taxes cannot be channelled to salaries, but to the essential items above.
The country has been facing a cash crisis since April 2015 and taking to the streets does not solve the matters at hand. Instead, people should rally behind the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube’s proposal to re-introduce the local currency within twelve months. This is a positive move which needs to be supported by all Zimbabweans. The new currency will allow the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to work on money supply and provision of foreign currency to critical sectors of the economy as well as rebuilding nostro accounts balances to allow trade to take place. The South African Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni has thrown his weight and, by implication, that of his country behind Prof Ncube’s efforts. This is a very important regional seal of approval.
As a nation, the way forward would be to put our ideas together and support Government efforts in attracting investors. Calling for violence and vandalism of infrastructure is not in the interests of the nation therefore, it should be discarded.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s trip to Russia and other countries will go a long way in attracting potential investors in the fields of agriculture and mining given that they are the pillars of Zimbabwe’s economy. The trip will bring fruitful deals which will see the country becoming food sufficient again and exporting value added tobacco and a number of minerals.
Strong economic policies like the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (STP) will go a long way in facilitating the country’s attainment of Vision 2030 by transforming the society to an upper middle income by 2030. The World Bank also projected that the Zimbabwean economy will grow by 3.7 percent in 2019, which is a positive outlook.
