There are many incidences which happened which we do not want to bring to the fore but in moving forward we must be able to give His Excellency an opportunity. Not only do we give him an opportunity but he must also give an opportunity to every Zimbabwean to see whether we are able to work together. The whole idea of monopolising Zimbabwe, thinking that I can do it, will never work but we can do, it will work. That is what the SONA, the challenges and success which he mentioned are premised on.
I challenge the Second Republic to go back, being November and 17th November coming, is a very important time for us. May this month be a moth where we introspect, where we circumspect and where we equally review and come up with a way forward because it is very important. 2017 November meant a lot to us because the change that we wanted had come. We must also be honest as leaders and say is this where we are? Is this where we are supposed to be? What are we supposed to do to get to the next point? In doing so, we must review the budgets. We must review every blue print document which comes to the fore. A country’s economy is based on its blue print document economically. We have had ESAP. Was there a review on ESAP, what was the good and the bad of ESAP. We had ZIMASSET, it came and there was never a review. I do not recall us reviewing the success and the failures of ESAP. We then move to the 10 Point Plan. The Ten Point Plan came without us even reviewing; now we are at the TSP. I am going to the TSP because we really need to be honest about the TSP austerity measures. We must look at the austerity measures which were mentioned, the steps taken and action taken on the austerity measure is where we are in terms of austerity measures. Were these austerity measures for the good or they were bad? The Americans did austerity measures with Barak Obama being President. The austerity measures were to come up with a stimulus package to give money to industry so that the industry grows.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we seem to think an austerity must make people suffer and when they suffer more we think we are doing well. We cannot be lying to the nation that the rate at which it is right now was not where it is by the time we had austerity measures. What has gone wrong? The Minister of Finance and Economic Development is critical in responding to this. We are here saying that the rate has stabilised but how can you say the rate has stabilised when you are not paying people what they are supposed to be paid according to auction rate. Teachers were being paid US$510 and we were being paid US$2 000 plus but when it comes to the auction rate we were not giving that.
The auction rate determines the buying power of the dollar. So, if you are not being given your US dollar at auction rate, there is no buying power. We cannot be excited by an increment of 255% to the civil servants when inflation is hitting 680% to 700%. If we are going to ever match the buying power of anybody in this country especially the civil servants, we must also align ourselves to the inflation rate. Madam Speaker, you cannot have an inflation of 700 and at the same time you are saying no, we are doing them a favour we are increasing it to 245. Can you also bear in mind that behind there is also a lot that they have suffered? They have never been value for this money whatever. When you go and borrow money, you are borrowing money at US dollar, when you pay back it is either US dollar or bank rate. You have an economy where people are not being paid in US dollars but they are expected to pay in US dollars. You have an economy where people are expected to pay at auction rate but you are not being paid at auction rate. So, it is a bubble that is waiting to burst.
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