Mnangagwa has two choices for Zimbabwe when taking the helm
INCOMING Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is expected to be sworn in today, has a choice of maintaining the status quo or laying the foundations of an irrevocable path to a sustainable and inclusive Zimbabwe.
Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s former finance minister, made the remarks at The Gathering conference at Sandton in Johannesburg yesterday.
“We have got the challenge of a huge fiscal crisis arising from failure by authorities to implement a strong fiscal regime.”
A strong critic of former president Robert Mugabe, Biti lamented the fact that when he was appointed by Mugabe to head the finance portfolio in 2009, hyperinflation was at a record high of 500 billion percent. He said it was the second-highest in the history of mankind after Hungary in 1946.
“We were trillionaires. There was a R100 000 trillion note which could not buy you a bottle of soda. Fast track that to 2017, it’s the opposite of the 2008 crisis. We have a crisis of under accumulation, characterised by recession.”
The only time the Zimbabwean economy, once dubbed the breadbasket of Africa, grew was in 2012, he said, adding that industrial factories in Zimbabwe were now being converted into pentecostal churches.
“Then you have a crisis of weak and non-existent demand, our shops now are full of goods from South Africa, but no one is buying. Our inflation has been hovering around 1 percent.”
Bond note
Biti also lashed out at the bond note, which he dismissed as a surrogate currency, saying it did not add any value to the economic system.
He said 82 percent of the 13 million Zimbabweans were living in extreme poverty, “surviving on R5 a day”.
As Mnangagwa would be sworn-in today, Biti said that he faced two choices – to either fill Mugabe’s shoes or use the military intervention that led to his resignation on Tuesday to lay the foundations for a truly sustainable and inclusive Zimbabwe. He characterised Mnangagwa as an acacia tree replacing a baobab tree.