The US targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe are working in the sense that their effects have now reached a boiling point unlike the earlier days during the time they were imposed on the country the signs and symptoms were still at a teething stage whereby not even the government was feeling the impact.
By Leonard Koni | Twenty three years later the results are now real and showing especially on the free falling of the economy and the debilitating of the infrastructure.
The economy has not been growing to expected levels. It has been growing at a snail’s pace and being choked by less production and exports. There is not even growth to talk about as far as the country’s economy is concerned. During the first five years when sanctions were imposed the government thought it was on track winning the fight against sanctions but in actual fact it waa chasing its shadow.
Now ten years later the Zimbabwean government realised that they were not winning this war against the removal of sanctions after trying to romp in regional blocks like Sadc and AU.
These sanctions are now currently making the regime more ruthless for example the regime is now craftiing draconian laws to punish anyone who shall have any meeting or discussion with foreign countries talking about imposing sanctions or speaking bad about the country. Neither South Africa is ready to solve the repression next door to its neighbour. It is also tired.
No guessing that this law will be used to gag the opposition which the government always accuse of begging sanctions.
Zimbabwe could have managed the effects of these sanction imposed in the year 2000 if we had sound economic policies.
For an example the government’s decision to enter the DRC war was due largely to the personal business interests in that country of a number of senior politicians and military officers. The war gobbled a lot of funds and left the country with a huge debt.
The economic devastation and increased corruption, poor policy choices, like the introduction of Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) and economic mismanagement were major keys destroying the nation.
We have flawed economic policies in place which are killing the country but we tend to ignore such fundamentals.
The farm mechanisation project was another scam. Zanu PF elites current and former stole from the national purse and gave themselves free farming equipment imported via a government loan.
We came up with skewed Operation Maguta, the $3billion corruption at Command Agriculture which failed to feed the country including Pfumvudza.
The government is now at knives with its own people. It has gone on overdrive to retaliate because of sanctions. However the regime has always been ruthless even without sanctions choking democracy and giving less space to breath to the opposition and political activists.
When Mnangagwa was elected in 2018 through a disputed election he touted himself as reformist but today he is another version of a dictator. He is now more securocratic than a political stalwart, and has been tarnished by the allegations of sleaze.
The fingerprints of state failures are all over the country for everyone to see. The sanctions mantra have also housed corruption so effectively.
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