Zim Ministers in a magical economic double act to half civil servants wage bill - drum roll

We have a government that has promised to reduce by half the civil servant wage bill, goggling up an unsustainable 83% of collected revenue, on the one hand. On the other hand the same regime maintains it is not going to lay off any worker!

"No civil servant shall be laid off," Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira assured a Workers Day audience.

Is this just wishful thinking by a regime that has run out of ideas and so is now pedalling voodoo economics!

It does not make any economic sense paying the workers who cannot carry out any work because they do not have the plant and consumables they need to do their work. What is the point of having the full complement of the kitchen staff when there is no food for them to cook, no water and electricity and, it goes without saying, no customers. If this was a private business it would have folded a long time ago but since government, like the big US Banks or car makers, is "too big to fail" it is still here.

The US Banks were bailed out for a short term and soon returned to being profitable. The bloated civil service will be a milestone round the nation's neck dragging the nation deeper and deeper into the economic abyss. The nation will not achieve any meaningful economic recovery as nothing is done to remove the milestone.

Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa was been courting IMF officials trying to convince them that Zimbabwe was now ready to abandon its voodoo economics of reckless spending which got the nation in this mess in the first place. One way of showing them the nation was serious was by promising to half the civil servant will bill.

So are we going to witness some magical economic double act by the Right Honourable Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, ably assisted by Minister Mupfumira in which the two will half the civil servants wage bill without laying off any worker. Drum roll!!!!!