BY Wilbert Mukori- “While Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, like his previous predecessors during the Mugabe era, keeps telling us that everything is firmly under control, the inflation figure should send alarm bells ringing madly down President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration corridors.
And while the present-day monetary authorities tell us that they learnt a lot from history and would not wildly print the reintroduced Zimbabwe dollar, the situation on the ground tell us the horses pulling the inflation rate have bolted,” wrote a local publication.
“And spurring forward these horses is the fuel price and the general rising cost of living in the country. A week after government effected a 15% fuel hike, another 23% climb greeted the nation yesterday morning. Cumulatively, fuel prices have gone up by about 456% this year alone.”
Least, we forget Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube assured us that inflation will be down to 10% by end of the year!
“Of course, as all Zimbabweans know, it has not been all plain sailing. The inflationary pressures we have faced have caused uncertainty and pain, and we have made dealing with this our number one concern. To address this, we have pushed ahead in our efforts to narrow the fiscal deficit and slow down money supply growth, and we project inflation to slow down to below 10% by the end of the year,” said Minister Ncube.
If is bad enough that the inflation horse has once again bolted and is causing heart breaking economic hardships the people are hit by the double whammy of souring prices and chronic shortages of food, fuel, medicine, etc. as economic activity goes into reverse in response to the uncertainties of being paid in a currency that is losing its value all the time. But what makes this situation totally, totally unacceptable is that there is nothing we, the people can do, other than saying “We warned you (Minister Ncube, President Mnangagwa and the rest of the Zanu PF regime) this would happen!”
Indeed, Zimbabwe’s economic trials and tribulations started soon after independence with Zanu PF’s “scientific socialism” – just a fancy name for Mugabe’s idiotic ideology of spending to prosperity. The party’s patronage system took off big time with the size of civil service, army, parastatal, etc. ballooning to accommodate party loyalists and their cronies. Mugabe used to announce hefty wage increases every Workers’ Day whilst protecting the consumer with price controls; people like that.
But by the late 1990s it was clear this reckless spending was not economically sustainable. As much as the people complained that the regime’s voodoo economic policies were creating poverty and not the “mass prosperity” (Gutsa ruzhinji!) Mugabe kept wittering about; the regime simply ignored them. The people could not remove Zanu PF from office during elections because the regime rigged elections to maintain its iron grip on power.
It is this inability to hold Zanu PF to democratic account, the ability to remove a failed regime is the ultimate expression of democratic elections, that is at the very heart of Zanu PF’s political arrogancy and indifference to the worsen economic situation and the heart breaking human suffering it brought. After 39 years of wringing our fingers whilst we watched Zanu PF blunder from pillar to post and destroying the economy we must now shift gears.
Yes, we must express our fury that Zanu PF has allowed the inflation horse bolt out but, this time we must go one step further, we must make sure we hold Zanu PF to democratic account for it.
We must demand that Zanu PF steps down so we can appoint an interim administration that will implement the democratic reforms designed to stop the party rigging elections. The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is 39 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship; bad governance. The country is desperate for the cure, good, competent and accountable government for which we need to implement the reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.