Celebrating the recovery of a paltry $55 000 reflects desperation

On Tuesday the People's Democratic Party released a statement expressing disappointment on the misdirected efforts by government in its desperate attempt to deal with the liquidity crisis.

We argued then as we do now that the street vendors working on a cash black market were not the cause of the financial crisis which has crippled the economy for a long time.

The party also stated that the amounts of money circulating on the black market are insignificant even if all the amounts were to be recovered and injected into the banking system, the crisis would continue unabated.

22 Arrests later only $55 000   "worthy' of bond notes have been recovered, less than 2000 United States Dollars were recovered. The proportions are an indicate against the claim that the black market is the dungeon in which all United States dollars are hidden, it is just a blue lie.

The people of Zimbabwe know where the forex is going, we are aware of who is importing luxury vehicles on tax payers account, the social media is still awash with pictures of the naughty boy at Gucci shops in New York.

If the RBZ's official figures are anything to go by, Broad Money Supply (M3) stood at 5,466 billion by end of 2016.To think that the thousands circulating in the streets have a significant effect on this, is just a reflection of an authority in need of both surgical and medical correction.

Those who walk the streets will tell you that 22 cash vendors are a significant percentage of money dealers, even if the rest were to be arrested less half a million dollars would be recovered.

In any case the real thieves are the ones responsible for the disappearance of money kept at the RBZ in form of RTGS balances and NOSTRO accounts.

The euphemism used by government in the Midterm Fiscal Policy Review Statement of 2016 is to the effect that the government has an overdraft facility at the Central Bank. Chinamasa calls it government position at the RBZ. He has the audacity to print graphical evidence of state authorised bank robbery.  

The police have since launched what they term operation "Dzosa Mari", we are of the view that the Police Service's resources would yield better results if they were deployed against Chinamasa and other ZANUPF thugs who spend what is not theirs.

We have always made the point that the cash shortages were not just an isolated financial crisis, the monetary crisis is just a manifestation of a deep fiscal crisis resulting from government indiscipline. A government which suffers from Fiscalities, the belief that money grows on trees and that you can keep spending oblivious of where the money is coming from.

Macroeconomic stability is an unavoidable fundamental, those who rig elections think they can rig economic principles but that is a fallacy.

The idea of balancing your books is very important, cash budgeting demands discipline. ZANUPF must learn from the past, an old trick "We eat what we kill" worked effectively; failure to follow the principle has brought catastrophic results.

This crisis is just but a creation of the government which spend huge sums of unbudgeted money, the deficit figures presented in the Mid Term Fiscal Policy Review Statement of 2017 confirm this fact.

The crisis is worsened by a non-producing industry, with a very low capacity utilisation.

This country needs proper leadership, with transformational capacity, the current crop will not get us out of this quagmire.

To make matters worse they do not take responsibility for failure, they stay in denial and point fingers at shadows.

Together Another Zimbabwe is Possible
Jacob Mafume
PDP Spokesperson