The precursor of our economic ruin.
The recent devaluation of our new currency by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe sent shock waves across the country and confirmed our fears that Zimbabwe’s inept government is effectively flying us on auto-pilot.
Under the sleepy eye of President Mnangagwa, RBZ Governor John Mushayavanhu is free to dice with the fate of Zimbabweans, eroding confidence in a new currency that was hardly trusted from the outset.
At a time when global gold prices are firming, the devaluation of the ZiG clearly exposes the lie that the currency is backed by our country’s gold reserves in a vault somewhere.
The truth of the matter is that we have no national gold reserves, as the mineral has been looted into private hands by the Gold Mafia, which we all saw in the exposé aired by Al-Jazeera in June 2023.
For civil servants and other workers earning their wages in the ill-fated ZiG, buying power has been halved in the blink of an eye with no warning or immediate cushioning.
Ironically, some of the workers affected by the kneejerk devaluation are ordinary staff at the RBZ itself, showing that the institution like the rest of the ZANU PF-led government, does not care about anyone, not even the labourers propping up the regime.
Needless to say the devaluation has spawned a succession of calamities.
- Retailers have hiked their prices in local currency to hedge themselves from further uncertainty and possible losses.
- Whatever little trust there was between the citizenry and the monetary authority has evaporated due to the RBZ Governor’s clueless manoeuvre.
- It would have been tragic enough if that was all we had to bemoan today but the madness at Munhumutapa Building knows no bounds.
While the nation was still coming to terms with the impulsive ZiG devaluation, the cabinet was busy brewing another shocker.
The government through utterances made by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Minister Jenfan Muswere, announced that landholders who benefited from the agrarian reforms that began in 2000, could now transfer or sell their land to indigenous Zimbabweans.
Nothing could be more criminally motivated than that.
Just harboring such thoughts could be considered deviant and criminal in a normal society.
While no official land audit report has ever been published in Zimbabwe, it is safe to surmise that nearly all beneficiaries of the land reform are members of ZANU PF, making the latest policy announcement an extension of the ruling party’s system of patronage.
We have said it time and again that the ZANU PF government is a spoils-centred and patrimonial regime, hiding behind a façade of democracy yet presiding over a totalitarian regime.
Having realized that they have neither capacity nor acumen to produce on farms, ZANU PF has given its beneficiaries the carte blanche to cash in on land they essentially got free of charge.
While the move remains a populist statement until it is debated in Parliament or duly gazetted as a statutory instrument, it is a call to action for the majority of landholders with no desire to produce anything off their free land.
By rewarding such laziness, ZANU PF has incentivized ineptitude, while dangerously giving inspiration to others sitting on mining claims and ill-gotten company shares.
Agriculture, enshrined in the preamble of our national constitution as the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy, should not be subjected to pedestrian policy pronouncements.
Such reckless moves further deepen our economic ruin as investors shy away from the chaos.
Lost on the rogue regime in Harare is that the value of land as an asset depends on strict laws governing ownership, tenure and other property rights.
Who needs to be told what happens to prices when everyone sells their land at the same time?
It is clear that the so-called Second Republic is nothing but a criminal enterprise, driven by coup plotters and mercenaries still paying themselves for toppling the late dictator, Robert Mugabe.