Total clean-up way to go

WHILE the clean-up of the financial services sector is ongoing, focus and attention should also be paid to the fuel sector.

A few days ago, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya pointed out that our fuel consumption was about the same or more than that of Ethiopia, a country of 100 million people compared to our 16 million.

There may be several reasons for this disparity.

However, the good Governor’s revelation was supposed to stimulate intense debate within the country.

Unfortunately, the revelation died a quiet death. The Government should be asking some very serious questions.

Why do we have fuel shortages? What is our real fuel consumption? Are the consumption figures from the industry true?

Are we only paying for fuel that is being imported or some of it is not even coming into the country?

Is it really true that we fail to meet our own demand for fuel?

There is something wrong with the procurement system.

If we believe that we have many people who are corrupt, is the fuel procurement system not also corrupted?

Fuel is the oil of the economy and the

Government needs to face the undeniable fact that there is probably some corruption going on in fuel procurement and distribution. The maths on continuous shortage of fuel does not add up.

If the financial services and fuel sectors are cleaned up, the foreign currency exchange rate stabilises, we get reliable electricity, we might find that our economy only collapsed on paper after all.

Ours is a very strong, balanced and robust economy. All that is required is a reasonable clean-up to bring back the shine.

Goto.