THE MDC led by Nelson Chamisa says it is gravely concerned about the deepening economic situation in tghe country, threatening unspecified but “robust action”.

In a statement following a seven hour meeting of the party’s national standing committee on Tuesday, deputy national spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka said President Emmerson Mnangagwa has failed to arrest the crisis.

“The party will soon embark on a robust programme to respond to the national crisis through peaceful and constitutional means.

“Mnangagwa has failed to deal with the burgeoning national crisis and the party resolved to take robust action in the near future on the side of the suffering people of Zimbabwe,” part of the statement reads.

In August this year, the MDC was barred from staging protests in five cities across the country.

Tamborinyoka said the Zimbabwean crisis has manifested itself in the form of unending fuel queues, electricity and water shortages and the ongoing strike by hospital doctors that entered its second month last week.

“There has been State capture as evidenced by cartels comprising top State players and a politically connected business elite. It is these cartels that are stealing taxpayers’ money through illegal deals and other nefarious activities that have brought the economy to its knees,” the opposition party said.

The MDC demanded that President Mnangagwa’s administration reimburses Zimbabweans the money that it illegally collected from them through the 2018, 2% transactional tax.

The tax was introduced last October and last month a High Court judge ruled Statutory 205/2018 null and void. However, government had already incorporated the legal instrument into the Finance Act rendering the ruling academic.

Zimbabwe is experiencing its worst power crisis with and an 18hr loadshedding schedule, water shortages across the country’s urban centres triggering fears of water borne disease outbreaks, fuel queues that have become a permanent feature and a currency that has gone into tailspin since introduction in June.