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Richard Mahomva
Rebuilding the Economy
ANY frank retrospection on the state of the economy in our country would reveal that we have been through a very arduous phase.
The hostility of austerity was sharply felt.
The fuel shortages and nationwide blackouts continued to be a daily part of our experience, but here we are.
The price hikes have been unbearable, but still we survived. 2020 must be better if we all unite against the sources of our economic challenges which have strong historical and structural rooting.
Radical efforts must be put in place to guide economic policy-making. Through it all, the key lesson is that macro-economic stability is earned. As such, fiscal discipline must continue to be entrenched in our economic governance culture.
Production must be increased so that the living conditions of our people improve.
Public accountability must be heightened in order to create confidence to the state and its economic development agenda. The turn-around initiatives unfolding courtesy of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) are part of the broad-based strategies inclined to a strategic recuperating of industry, tourism, agriculture and other critical sectors of the economy.
A substantial hallmark footprints to this effect is closely linked to the return of the Zim Dollar (ZWL). This critical policy turn comes in as an exigent step which has been long overdue in addressing the inflation crisis under the multi-currency system.
Zimbabwe adopted the multi-currency regime in 2009 to curb the ruinous hyperinflation. It has served its purpose and over stayed its welcome. However, in 2016 the Government due to shortages of cash issued a surrogate currency, the Bond note which was trading along with the RTGS.
The multi-currency basket composed of the United States Dollar (USD), South African Rand, British Pound, Botswana Pula and a wide-range of other foreign currencies, but the USD was the widely spread currency in the market.
Most goods and services prices were pegged at parallel market-based rates. This later invited the inter-bank rating intervention by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
National Dialogue
2019 also offered valuable lessons to the cause of national dialogue under the enabling structure of the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad). Through Polad, all voices of dissent represented by the opposition have given mutual correlational traction with the ruling.
Therefore, no voice has been left out and no voice must usurp a prejudice inclined monopoly in such an important opportunity for Zimbabwe to be in conversation.
This should build a long lasting premise for a migration from narrow structural bases of power to the broader apex of democracy.
Today’s decisive national dialogue must be located within the prism of the values of an open society born out of the transitional culture of the new Zimbabwe.
The Post-Election dialogue postures a constructive narrative and national psyche for lasting and collective defence of the values of constitutionalism, democracy and good governance.
Any dismissal of this long-term political tolerance building initiative would be largely misguided and senselessly partisan and narcissist.
The call for dialogue by President Emmerson Mnangagwa vividly and lucidly instructs the rationale to decapitate split patriotic consciousness.
In our differences we must locate broader socio-economic building aspirations of our country. If our conflicting points of political interest do not recognise the essence of nationhood then we are doomed to fail.
The call for national dialogue epitomises a deliberate and much needed commitment to promoting political tolerance in the pursuit of a practical departure from toxic politics. As we shift from the old to the new, the patronage misdemeanours of the First-Republic must be buried in the past.
The mistakes of the past should mirror the direction for a long lasting culture to being united people.
Sadc Solidarities to the Re-Engagement Agenda
The Sadc resolution to push for the removal of sanctions against Zimbabwe affirms the region’s confidence in the Second Republic’s renewed re-angling of our nation’s political-economy affairs.
The electoral endorsement of President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018 was symbolic of the dignity which the Second Republic carries under the ruling Zanu-PF.
The conferment of this esteemed mandate to serve at the mercy of the people has inspired the ultimate decision reached by the entire Sadc community to have President Mnangagwa as the Chair of the region’s Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.
The merited appointment of President Mnangagwa as the Chair of this strategic portfolio comes against a backdrop multi-faceted neo-colonial expedience mechanisms cladded in the detraction efforts of the opposition MDC-Alliance.
This explains why the recently choreographed protests (August 16) coincided with President Mnangagwa’s assumption of this top Sadc post. The anticipated aim of the protest was to injure Zimbabwe’s credibility to be a key figure of politics, security and defence diplomacy.
The idea was to co-ordinate despondency with a view to agitate state security and give validation to the fabrications of the intensified whims of military hegemony in Zimbabwe.
However, the plan by the opposition to smear Zimbabwe’s qualifying position to lead this crucial Sadc organ was devoid of the endorsement of the 2017 November transition by the rest of the continent.
The decision by the entire continent to endorse the narrowly queried November transition is symbolic of the enduring pan-African position to defend the perpetuity of the liberation legacy.
The shared continental emotion to secure Zimbabwe’s liberation legacy was further affirmed by the Sadc and entire African Union Election Observer Mission (AUEOM) in 2018. This was a broad gesture by the continent to usher Zimbabwe into the Second Republic by means of a democratic process.
Therefore, President Mnangagwa’s regional appointment substantiates the extent to which the rest of Southern Africa has been following closely the key political and security related developments in Zimbabwe. This appointment serves an articulate position of the region to give sanctity to the reform path of our current political dispensation. This further exposes the pitfalls of the local criticism to the Mnangagwa administration.
President Mnangagwa’s current regional elevation crystallises the selective amnesia of the anti-establishment cohorts bent on polarising Zimbabwe in a bid to disfigure the success of the re-engagement overdrive.
This is a clear benchmark of a high diplomatic score of Zimbabwe under the able leadership of His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Sadc’s support to Zimbabwe in the fight against Zidera reaffirms the organic political soul of the region which demystifies the morality of Western interests in our sovereign political affairs.
This is why it makes sense for Sadc as an anti-colonial collective to demand for the removal of the EU and Zidera sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. These illegal sanctions are an antithesis to the spirit of African liberation inspired self-determination.
For the first time under the leadership of President Mnangagwa our fight against neo-imperialism has attracted regional backing.
Therefore, it is not astonishing that the US is reacting the way it has done. The continued attacks on the anti-sanctions proposition by the opposition and its Western proxies is telling of a deliberate asymmetrical warfare against the region’s longstanding and unequivocal aspirations.
The lobby for the continued imposition of sanctions is not only reflective of the opposition’s fight against Zanu-PF, but the proposition to keep sanctions alive in Zimbabwe is a fight against the region’s united effort to fight against the hangovers of imperialism.
It must be noted that the need to consolidate the position on sanctions by MDC-Alliance in cohorts with the US Embassy is not new.
The move reflects the perennial ideological position of the opposition and is telling of the role of the Chamisa party as an accessory of imperial hegemony.
Clearly, it is undisputable that Zanu-PF still represents the broader continental aspirations as it continues to be a hub of rethinking the colonial matrix of power.
On the diametrically opposite, it is somehow apparent that the slanders of the 25 October Movement can only be antagonists of “African solutions for African problems.”
This is why the bloodline of their existence has been merely colonially financed. From the outset, the MDC was founded to manufacture false property and human rights to validate the Zidera and EU sanctions.
Going forward, Zanu-PF must upscale its efforts to address the economic challenges faced by the ordinary citizens.
Regional solidarities must be enhanced to give room for African solutions for African problems to give the idea of re-engagement a meaningful impact in creating Foreign Direct Investment.
Online Reporter