Structured currency is foredoomed
Mr President
GOOD day, President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Your Excellency, as the economy battles with currency volatility and soaring inflation, as I see it, the said structured currency is foredoomed. It is much ado about nothing hype.
Methinks dollarisation is a viable strategy. Verily, citizenry has long lost confidence in the local currency. With the leading chain supermarkets now pricing their merchandise in United States dollars, it is indisputable confirmation of the loss in trust in the local currency.
Considering the instability of the local currency, dollarisation is as inevitable as it is laudable. Ever since you reintroduced it in 2019, following a decade of absence, the Zimbabwe dollar has inherently been a weakling. It did not take long from relaunch for it to suffer heavy losses in value.
It hit the ground running on the downwards slope. Amid its perpetual loss of strength, citizens withdrew their confidence in the local currency. It became the norm for anyone with it to quickly change it to hard currency.
Hence, the emerging of the fastest growing employment sector, the money changers. Consequently, amid its progressive loss of value, you were compelled to reauthorise the use of foreign currency for domestic transactions.
Granted, whatever strategy government, through the Finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) conceived is foredoomed. It will not suffice to generate confidence in the local currency. I state it boldly, at the risk of being branded with untoward labels, that citizenry has long lost confidence in the local currency.
It is my sworn perspective that no amount of patriotism wiĺl suffice to warm citizenry up to the local currency, by whatever name. The business community and the populace are in unison in their loss of confidence in it.
Your Excellency, as the renowned banker John Mushayavanhu entered the fray at the apex of RBZ, a grieving and mournful quietude enveloped me. It was the irony of coincidence that his appointment coincided with government endeavours to prop up the local currency.
Yet, there is ample evidence that citizenry has long lost confidence in the local currency.
Even lobola is transacted in hard currency. Methinks the appointment of Mushayavanhu was occasioned by routine than as a strategy to stabilise the free-falling local currency.
Essentially, expectations on him to spearhead the strengthening of the local currency, by whatever means, are fundamentally misplaced. Verily, it is an absolute figment of the imagination for anyone to say that the currency stabilisation measures are around the corner.
Yet, it was inevitable even as you relaunched it that the local currency was destined to lose ground against foreign currencies. Strangely, of all the market players, it was the informal sector that started the relentless onslaught against it.
Now, it is only the hundred dollar note that remains in circulation. However, the free-falling exchange rate and volatility are self evident that government has for long been flogging a dead horse by maintaining it. Be that as it may, the said currency stabilisation is a kind of big yawn, destined to be foredoomed.
Unlike all other regional currencies that are steady and predictable, the local one is frail by all means and ways. It was against the backdrop of its rapid depreciation that the World Bank recently urged your government to make fiscal and monetary policies predictable as a strategy to instil confidence in the fast deprecating local currency.
Given the mastery of Mushayavanhu in the intricacies of economic and financial management, as I see it, he is up to the task of implementing the recommendation of WB to make fiscal and monetary policies predictable.
Apparently, government lacks financial discipline. It has the propensity to spend more than its earnings, thereby breaching its own commitment to fiscal prudence.
Described aptly by a Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce executive as a government with an appetite to eat what it did not produce, the trend of avarice and financial indiscipline is a recurrent feature in the annual Auditor-General's reports.
I reckon Mushayavanhu could not have answered to the call of public office at a worse off time than now. His assignment is altogether daunting. It thrusts him from the onset in the chasm of credibility deficit of your government on one hand, and of your Presidency on the other. He needs an outpouring of blessings of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
His appointment came in the immediate aftermath of the harmonised elections which were condemned by all accredited observer missions as a sham and the imposition of targeted sanctions on you by the United States government.
Your Excellency, the effects of your being placed in the same corruption league with the Gupta brothers and Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the late former Angolan President Josè Edwardo dos Santos are punitive and hurtful to the national economy
It was long proven that politics and economics are inseparable close cousins. You cannot choose to embrace one and forsake the other. As I see it, the currency instability Zimbabwe is experiencing stems from the rogue ‘Zanu ndeye ropa’ (Zanu is a bloody party) mindset.
Apparently, RBZ is one of the State institutions that suffered degeneration owing to political manipulation. At some point it stooped to the lowest ethical standards by resorting to the printing press.
Fundamentals of sound economic and financial management are conspicuous by their violation in the public sector. There is neither virtue nor honesty as the transgression of accountability and transparency has long become a culture.
Your Excellency, the structured currency is foredoomed. I reckon Mushayavanhu could not have commenced his governership at a worse off time than now. Verily, his predecessor John Mangudya must be heaving a huge sigh of relief.