Full statement
Monday, 09 May 2016
President Tsvangirai convenes urgent Shadow Cabinet meeting
President Tsvangirai will tomorrow convene an urgent Shadow Cabinet meeting to discuss pressing national issues; top of which is government’s ill-advised move to bring back the Zimbabwe dollar through the back door.
The country is mired in a monumental crisis and the MDC shadow Cabinet and the party’s national executive that will also be convened soon, will chart a robust and comprehensive political reaction to this madness. The MDC is taking the government’s ill-advised decision seriously, hence the urgent meeting of the Shadow Cabinet and the national executive to discuss this urgent matter of national interest.
The huge national crisis is summed up by the chilling fact that more than half of the country is now surviving on domesticating and selling what only a year ago were wild birds (zvihuta). It would be futile to expect Zanu PF to get us out of this mess that it has created as that would be tantamount to expecting a mosquito to cure malaria.
The MDC is preparing a robust political response to this madness and the party reserves its right to mobilize the people against this ill-advised decision that is certainly not backed by economic logic. Zimbabweans have fresh memories of the traumatizing experiences with the “bearer’s cheques” of 2008. The so-called bond notes, with a value of up to $20, signify a return to the stressing national times off eight years ago. Ordinary Zimbabweans lost their savings, pensioners lost their life-time savings and companies and other institutions were shortchanged as the economy tumbled until the MDC presence in an inclusive government brought stability and unprecedented economic annual growth figures, which peaked at 12 percent in 2012.
The cash crisis which led to the decision to print bond notes stems from a crisis of confidence. There is no confidence in both the economy and in the banks, all stemming from a crisis of legitimacy arising out of the stolen election of 2013. Unfortunately for Zanu PF, the printing of bond notes cannot be a panacea to what is essentially a political crisis that needs a political solution.
One cannot mask illegitimacy under the veil of bond notes that are essentially a sanitized version of ordinary bond paper or newsprint. Bond coins, bond notes all point to the cluelessness of what has become a “bond” government that is running the affairs of State.
Between 2009 and 2013, President Tsvangirai and his team worked very hard to steer the ship of State towards an economic Canaan, but President Mugabe’s government seeks to reverse all the gains and return the country to the long suffering years in Egypt.
The printing of bond notes will be the death knell to this economy. Zimbabweans have walked this road before. They have not forgotten the dark days when they were poor quintillionaires. President Tsvangirai and the MDC will do all they can to save the country and to return it to logic and common sense.
Luke Tamborinyoka
Presidential Spokesperson and Director of Communications
Movement for Democratic Change
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