But not a single person of any stature has been convicted – not even Dube from PSMAS who, together with other senior managers and Directors took more than half the total revenue of the Medical Aid Society over three years. Not even the former Minister of Mines responsible for the Marange scandal which resulted in diamond revenues amounting to over US$23 billion disappearing over an 8-year period.
It’s not that the new leadership has done nothing, they have done a great deal and I have given them recognition for all of those things. They have dealt with the fiscal deficit which was completely out of control. They have demilitarised the Joint Operations Command and installed new leadership in the armed forces and the security establishment. They have scrapped indigenisation – the greatest single impediment to new investment, they have tried hard to be more open to business, but with very little to show for months of rhetoric. They have stated their intention to scrap POSA and IEPA – both Acts which have stifled national debate and opposition for many decades – perhaps more than 70 years.
But they have not given Zimbabweans the economic, financial and political freedoms that have been promised by successive Governments. This failure is now destroying everything that they have achieved since November 2017.
We have a Reserve Bank Governor, whom the President says will be there for another 5-year term, who is clearly out of his depth. He insists that the ‘Bond’ currency which he created is valued at 1:1 with the US dollar, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Yet despite this – we have Government departments and even Zimra demanding payment in real US dollars for services and in taxes. We have schools demanding part of their fees in hard currencies. The fuel industry is in complete shambles, some outlets sell fuel only to ‘Card Holders’, others ask for hard currency, even on the forecourts. Where the ubiquitous swipe card can be used, we have queues kilometres long and people sleeping in their vehicles. Yet the State denies there is a problem? Are they nuts?
It is not that we do not know what the solutions are. In 2009, in a 15-minute statement, Chinamassa abolished exchange controls, price controls and restrictions on gold sales and allowed us to trade in many currencies. In 10 days the fuel shortages vanished, in a month you could buy whatever you wanted at market driven prices, in the currency of your choice. In six months we were nearly fully dollarized and inflation was close to zero. Revenues to the State grew by 70 per cent per annum (that is not a spelling mistake) and standards of living improved every year.
If you put a mealie cob in a can with a hole the size of a hand in one end and put it where the baboons can find it, a baboon will put his hand in the hole to grasp the cob – and will not let go to get his hand out even when threatened. Many of our leaders are just like that baboon – they have their hands in the till and cannot let go even if they are threatened. There can be no progress in this country until our leadership starts to put our national house in order and compels all those Ministers and Officials or even just politically connected individuals, to take their hands out of the till and allow us to repair the damage that they have done to us a Nation over the past seven decades.
That is what the people are asking from you Mr. President – not more words, action, not more promises, delivery and most of all real leadership to take us out of the morass we are in and give us a start on the long road back to a better quality of life.
Eddie Cross
Harare, December 30th 2018
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