By Dr Masimba Mavaza | The police must make sure that President Mnangagwa’s marching order to go after commodity hoarders and smugglers is implemented.
There appears to be a “shortage” of basic goods which is the cheapest variety in the market but clearly not presented for sale by the shop owners. Products like fuel cooking oil sugar bread and salt just disappeared without trace.
Certain traders are hoarding goods on purpose, resulting to artificial shortage that drives the prices up.
Addressing the nation earlier on the President issued a stern warning to all of these syndicates. The president said there was a need to address the issue of artificial shortage. The President asked all the hoarders, cartels and their protectors, to stop sabotaging the country. His excellency told the hoarders that he is watching and they must stop messing with people.”Power sometimes is not a good thing. But I hope I will not have to use it against you. Consider yourselves warned; mend your ways now or the full force of the State shall be brought to bear upon you.
It is now the duty Of all security agencies to unmask the perpetrators of this economic sabotage and our law enforcement agencies to bring them to justice.
Hoarding products is economic sabotage. This must be a non-bailable offence because it is a price manipulation.
Contrary to the aim of this currency fiasco, it has happened a year before elections. It will be sorted just in time for elections as the president has already put up measures to arrest such economical anomalies.
The treasonous behaviour has happened before. We had another episode before auction was set up and Zanu-PF members even summoned Mthuli NCUBE to explain the situation. What is happening now is a total manipulation.
Captains of industry are playing games with people’s lives. They took advantage of the forex auction. After getting cheap forex they show Zanu-PF and Zimbabweans a middle finger by raising prices thereby making the life of common Zimbabweans unbearable.
The whole fiasco is a calculated de campaigning already put in motion.
It is time for the President to abandon good guy mentality to industry. We must go hard on these people without fear of the infrastructure development happening. We must notice that a growing popularity of ED is engaging some slowing down. The CCC is using industrial captains to dent the Growing popularity of ED in urban areas. Popularity of the party is now curtailed by price rises. Barring the policy missteps of RBZ and global inflation due to war in Ukraine we would not be in this situation.
The Zimbabwean industrial Captains have become like American Robber Barons.
The robber barons transformed the wealth of the American frontier into vast financial empires, amassing their fortunes by monopolizing essential industries. In turn, these monopolies were built upon the liberal use of tactics that are today the hallmark of organized crime: intimidation, violence, corruption, conspiracies, and fraud.
It is thus important to look at the Zimbabwean situation in its historical perspective.
In 2017 when ED became president he met with captains of industry they raise a number of issues and one was the accessibility to forex. They assured the nation that they want to retool and produce goods and create jobs. The president as listening as he is provided the funds through the ministry of finance and ministry of industry and commerce. The retooling project was activated.
The initiative of meeting the captains of industry came after there was a rise in prices of goods after removing the 1:1 rate and fuel was no longer subsidised.
To accommodate everyone and introduce fairness in forex accessibility the forex auction is introduced. The initiative brought sharp changes. Genuine businesses got on board and for the first time shelves have over 75 percentage local produced goods. The local content on products started to promote business and employment. Again liquidity was realised.
Inflation falls from double digits numbers. Calls were made to liberalize the rate more and the Reserve bank through Mangudya refused. Because of this refusal there was a sharp visibly animosity between the ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Suddenly RBZ could not meet demand to pay winning bidders at auction floors. Prior to that those who were benefiting from auction still peg their prices at black market rate so late of delivery of forex is used as an excuse. The beneficiaries took advantage of the system and milked the foreign currency dry.
In 2022 the slide became prominent before by elections. It became clearer that the Captains of Industry were pushing for Zanu-PF ouster through dollarisation. The plot was simply to starve the masses to rebellion. The same operational mode is being used right now to make the economy scream before elections like what was done in 2008. The regime change agenda is in action and the drivers of the regime change agenda are pushing their agenda without stopping.
Faced with such onslaught on Zimbabwe’s sovereignty Zanu-PF has to be tough and nip it in the bud before it is to late.
The new plan to remove ZANU PF is to starve the country economically and have the masses starve to rebellion. The target of the regime change drivers is to have Zimbabwe on its knees by 2023. This is economic SABOTAGE bordering on the lines of a coup. Even after liberalising forex exchange to find true value of local currency prices continue going up. Banks are sitting on huge amounts of forex but there is insatiable demand for it…why are they not playing ball because they are in dip in it. They are being used to achieve the regime change agenda.
Demand for democracy as we currently understand it, was conceived in the Western world. Its progenitor: technology. The innovations that kickstarted regime change agenda and the Industrial down turn fostered the so called modern democracy and led to the foundation of regime change mantra. They disrupted society, destroyed previous structures, as well as building new ones which are against the system currently in power. Institutions, industry and demography were all to change course and, ultimately, little about life in Zimbabwe was left untouched by the Economic sabotage.
Technological transformation took a long time to feed through to politics and policy. But its diffusion ended up permeating both, ultimately reshaping political representing the culmination of a long debate over the role of capital and rights of workers.There are deep questions around inequality, productivity and regulatory capture. Worries around corporatism are rising and consequently, calls for regime change are becoming louder. We increasingly read and hear about self-sabotage referring to the ways in which we compromise ourselves by engaging in negative behaviours, some of which appear antisocial, and most of which contain elements of undermining either our physical or mental well-being. Self-sabotage behaviour may be obvious to the client but more often or not operates at a subtle, subconscious level, and often needs to be brought to light by someone else, and in most cases, this is a trained psychotherapist or counsellor.
Zimbabwe is facing acts by several political camps disrupting harass or damage the reputation of the country and the ruling ZANU PF. This is more so usually during an electoral campaign. Smear campaigns are a commonly used tactic but in the case of Zimbabwe the tactics are damaging the country’s economy forever.
The economy of Zimbabwe mainly relies on its tertiary industry, which makes up to 60% of the total GDP as of 2020 Zimbabwe has the second biggest informal economy as a share of its economy, which has a score of 60.6%. Agriculture and mining largely contribute to exports. But with sabotage Zimbabwe is getting from regime change campaigners the economy is now limping. Afraid of the infrastructure development happening and growing popularity of ED they are now using captains of Industry to make MNANGAGWA unpopular.
Growing popularity in urban areas is now curtailed by price rises Zimbabwe must act very fast.
An understanding of all of the economic consequences, both seen and unseen, is vital if we are to guard ourselves from this second kind of sabotage.As Zimbabweans let us say No to destructive industrial actions.