First and foremost, Zimbabwe’s economy is literally dead and dysfunctional. Zimbabwe is buffeted by lack of cohesion, lack of incapacitation, lack of inconsistencies and the bottom line is there is lack of political will to correct the problem. More than 4.1 million face starvation and the Government is silent.

We have witnessed rampant corruption in the public sector, more than 9 Billion has been lost as a nation and even the executive has not responded to that. Historically in 2017 UK ( Britain) was warming up to the Zimbabwe regime and Mnangagwa was given time to redeem himself as a national leader by transforming himself. The unfortunate path is nothing has changed and the country has gone from bad to worse. We have a serious crisis as a nation and we either change the whole discourse or we deal with the structural problem. Instead of dealing with the toxic issue which has affected our country, the arrogant Muthuli Ncube who is at the helm of the finance portfolio is now working on bringing the Chinese currency, popularly known as swap and top. My question is by swaping with the Chinese currency, what is Zimbabwe offering to the Chinese Government? We have always talked about transparency and reforms of which this Government will never concede to that effect. The simple route is reforms and political will. We are experiencing all these problems simply because of people who are not willing to reform and make correct decisions. We blame sanctions yet we have witnessed the following :

1. More than 5.9 Billion has disappeared at the hands of thieves running Command Agriculture.

2. More than 9 Billion has gone to the drainage at the hands of thieves manning Command uglyculture ( 2017-2019)

3. 20 million has disappeared at the Ministry of Defence, and nothing has happened

4. NSSA funds . Over 900 million has gone missing.

5. Gold worthy 2.2 Billion has been smuggled outside the country.

6. Since Mugabe left the helm of our country State Procurement Board is no longer in existence. No more tender systems

7. Hiring of planes for the President & Executive running into millions of dollars on hourly basis eg from Harare – Gweru for a clean up campaign or other non-economic events

8. NRZ deal (400 million)

My simple question, where does sanction mantra come in on this one? As we speak more than three quarters of the population face starvation, majority of citzens are walking from work places to their respective homes. Transporters are charging exorbitant figures and people are living below the datum poverty line ( DPL). According to the Human Development Index ( HDI) , 2019 report, more than 500 million worthy of aid was abused mainly by senior Government officials. Food aid that was meant for Chimanimani victims were diverted for personal use. There are gross human.rights violations since Mnangagwa took over as the President of the republic of Zimbabwe, we have witnessed many deaths. During Mugabe’s era, we never saw people being shot in the day broad light, August 1 will go down in the history of Zimbabwe as a sad day for most Zimbabwe when more than 7 civilians were shot. The honest truth is Zimbabwe is facing a serious humanitarian, political and economic crisis and the only solution is to admit failure and show the political will to deal with the crisis.

We are out of common wealth, Britian has snubbed us, we are under USA sanctions, and Zimbabwe has been turned into a pariah state were laws meant to govern the country have been abolished. It has been reportedly that the mashurugwi gang stormed a police station demanding their own to be released unconditional. Soon we are going to witness a civil rife looming in this country. The situation in all hospitals is a cause of concern.

Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo is a Policy Advisor and Researcher and he can be contacted at [email protected]