Mthuli Ncube- the ‘troubled banker’ tasked with fixing Zimbabwe’s economy

Ncube is a former Dean of the Faculty of Commerce Law and Management, and also Dean and Professor of Finance at Wits Business School. He founded the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wits University.

He has also served on the South African Financial Services Board (FSB), which regulates non-banking financial institutions. He has also chaired the board of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Kenya. He is a board member of the Royal Africa Society.

In one of the many ironies of Zimbabwe’s evolving political and governance systems, Ncube’s surprise appointment sets up an intriguing reunion with his former tormentor Gono.

The former central banker is now the chairman of the Special Economic Zones Authority board, which reports to the Finance Minister.

Reacting to the central bank’s aggressive moves against banks 14 years ago, Ncube accused Gono of heavy-handedness.

“I think the action taken against us was disproportionate and excessive,” Ncube said.

“There are some banks which were exposed to over $100 billion but were said to be in a sound financial position.”

Ncube comes in with a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders. By calling for an end to bond notes within “the short to medium term”, he has added even further pressure on himself even before stepping into his new office.

But what does Ncube plan to do differently? Far from being the lone super-hero saviour, a big part of his strategy appears to be on building consensus around policy. He is proposing advisory committees for key areas such as budget monitoring, monetary policy and investment.

Below are some of the steps that Ncube plans to take:

• To build consensus across government and other sectors, he plans to set up a “Macroeconomics Co-ordination Committee” that would include his Ministry, RBZ, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, labour, business and Zimstats, the national stats agencies.
• Treasury to use technology in monitoring revenue and other tasks. While RBZ has been suspicious of cryptocurrencies, Ncube says blockchain must be adopted in Government. ZIMRA, he says, should use mobile to collect data from taxpayers. He says: “When I was vice-president and chief economist of the Africa Development Bank, I implemented such programmes successfully in Tunisia and the DRC.”
• A three-year budget cycle; He would set a three-year target for the budget deficit for Zimbabwe, matched with what he calls “clear expenditure control measures”, especially on recurrent expenditure, and revenue collection targets that meet the budget deficit targets.
• Ncube wants to set up a Monetary Policy Committee. He believes RBZ should stop all “quasi fiscal activities”, which is fancy talk for spending too much money on things that the Government does not really need.
• He wants to set up a Zimbabwe International Economic Advisory Council (Zieac), under the Ministry of Finance and working with Foreign Affairs. This council, which will have up to 15 members, would lead Zimbabwe’s re-engagement with foreign investors and international funders. On the council would be senior economists with global clout and top business leaders. The members would be drawn from Europe, US, Asia, Africa and Zimbabwe. – The Source

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