President Emmerson Mnangagwa says the list of people that heeded his call to return funds that they had externalised is long. But what is worrying is his statement, if he was quoted correctly by the Herald, that he will release the figures in due course.
Since the President is meeting Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya today, the sooner he releases the figures the better.
Maybe this could be the first tangible thing that the President would have achieved.
So far most of the achievements are just talk, except of course the one thing people seem to have forgotten about- the removal of police road blocks.
People have been waiting patiently for three months to know how effective Mnangagwa’s call would be. Some even suggested that the move was meant to enable him and some of his cronies to return funds they had externalised.
For now, ordinary Zimbabweans are not interested in the names of who had externalised what but what is more important is how much was returned and how it is going to be used. Everyone wants to know whether it will ease the current cash crisis.
Once the dust has settled, people will want to know who externalised funds. Publishing the list would go a long way to show transparency. At the same time it will allow whistleblowers to expose those that the government might not know about.
Mnangagwa says he has a list of all those who externalised funds, but these might only be those that used banks or official channels.
The President has listed a number of things that his administration has achieved since he came to power.
The list is impressive but it does not address the immediate problems that people are facing- jobs and the cash crisis.
Yes, people are getting by through the use of electronic money but the country must have cash so that the use of electronic money becomes optional.
Since most people are already used to electronic money what the government could then do is tax or levy those who use cash with minimum thresholds of course to protect the rural poor.
The sooner people know what is now in the government coffers, the better.
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