Opinion / Columnist
New Dispensation of Patronage to Cronies
04 Jul 2021 at 13:50hrs | Views
I have been watching our political leaders for a while and have noticed that they are the ones who start all the messy that our country has ended up in. All the vices like black market anything, illegal fuel imports, illegal mining, pirating, illegal vending, illegal land sales, and everything else; it is the security forces, government ministers, and their cronies.
People can read this and dismiss it saying this is true in any other country; the difference is that in Zimbabwe, 95 percent of the youths are mostly high school graduates and higher but jobless. They are too idle but have mastered one skill—study political leaders' shenanigans and beat them at their game all the time.
For example, the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe introduced the forex auctions at the Apex bank. At first glance, this looked like a sound policy before it became abundantly clear that the new gods used it to monopolize the forex black market world for themselves and their cronies.
Since they wanted to keep things under wraps, the New Dispensation and their cronies were happy with a black market rate of USD$1 to 100 bonds. The youth quickly figured it out and turned the facility into USD$1 to 130 bonds using the political leaders' money. The youths deployed everywhere including in the supermarkets.
The New Dispensation and their cronies lost ground and their response as always was a new policy instrument SI 127 of 2021 banning the use of foreign currency in local transactions. We all know what happened; prices shot up by 50 percent overnight.
This is a sad reality, in crisis after crisis we have witnessed in Zimbabwe, it is the political leaders who 'start the fight' and they are always beaten badly by the youths. The government response has always been new policy instruments SI XXX of XXX.
It is ironic that President Mnangagwa now is a believer that such vices like corruption, illegal forex exchanges, illegal vending, etc. can achieved by barking orders. Who really cares about these policy instruments anymore?
People can read this and dismiss it saying this is true in any other country; the difference is that in Zimbabwe, 95 percent of the youths are mostly high school graduates and higher but jobless. They are too idle but have mastered one skill—study political leaders' shenanigans and beat them at their game all the time.
For example, the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe introduced the forex auctions at the Apex bank. At first glance, this looked like a sound policy before it became abundantly clear that the new gods used it to monopolize the forex black market world for themselves and their cronies.
Since they wanted to keep things under wraps, the New Dispensation and their cronies were happy with a black market rate of USD$1 to 100 bonds. The youth quickly figured it out and turned the facility into USD$1 to 130 bonds using the political leaders' money. The youths deployed everywhere including in the supermarkets.
The New Dispensation and their cronies lost ground and their response as always was a new policy instrument SI 127 of 2021 banning the use of foreign currency in local transactions. We all know what happened; prices shot up by 50 percent overnight.
This is a sad reality, in crisis after crisis we have witnessed in Zimbabwe, it is the political leaders who 'start the fight' and they are always beaten badly by the youths. The government response has always been new policy instruments SI XXX of XXX.
It is ironic that President Mnangagwa now is a believer that such vices like corruption, illegal forex exchanges, illegal vending, etc. can achieved by barking orders. Who really cares about these policy instruments anymore?
Source - Sam Wezhira
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