Saturday 7 May 2016

After wasting time in the phony factional wars Zanu PF gets rude awaken with bond notes fiasco. By Wilbert Mukori


Let me say from the onset, I am really pleased that Zanu PF’s phony factional wars are now over and the regime can finally focus its attention on the nation’s BIG ISSUE – the worsening economic meltdown.

Ever since Grace Mugabe bust on the political stage in July 2014 with her shrill “Ndinonzi Mafira kureva!” (I am called (Mafira kureva) One who speaks the truth even to the death!) until now when she was finally silenced the regime has been totally preoccupied with her and what she had to say. All she has done was accused first Joice Mujuru and then Mnangagwa of all manner of crime some true others wild and fictitious just to elbow the two out of the way so she could succeed her husband as next president. She managed to “baby dump” Mujuru but failed to do the same with Mnangagwa.

When Mnangagwa’s supporters told Robert Mugabe last month that the war vets and those in the security sectors, whom Grace Mugabe’s G40 factions had been abusing, were the “stockholders of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe” whilst he, Robert Mugabe, was a “stakeholder who comes and goes”; Mugabe knew the game was over. The G40 faction had lost, there will be no more meet the people rallies and shrill voice of Mafira kureva will be head no more!

But before VP Mnangagwa has had time to savour his victory over Mafira kureva and her G40 faction he was reminded that there is an even bigger foe for him to defeat if he is ever to be president – the economy. The country is facing a serious cash crunch – just one of the many manifestations of the country’s economic meltdown.- and immediately it was clear that the regime has no answer.

The regime’s proposal to introduce bond notes (over the bond coins introduced supposedly to easy the shortage of small change) is kicking the tin can down the road – a cul-de-sac in this case – it will solve nothing.  

The cash crunch is because Zimbabwe has become a supermarket nation, importing everything it consumes whilst exporting very little itself. There is bound to be a cash shortage because we have a lot more cash flowing out of the country than is flowing back in; that is not rocket science.

The introduction of these bond notes will easy the cash shortage for local transactions but put the squeeze on foreign ones as the drain in foreign currency will continues to the extend import costs exceed export receipts. It will not be long before the black market trade opens buying foreign currency with the bond notes triggering the fall in value to the latter.

Yes the regime has reintroduced the Z$ by the back door and called it bond notes. The banks will convert the foreign currency denominated accounts to bond notes at the official exchange rate but refuse to sell foreign currency at the same official rate (except to the lucky few). The days of Zimbabwe’s runaway inflation are back!

The RBZ governor’s instruction for all export payments to be 40% in Rand 10% in Euros and the balance in US$ if fiddling whilst Rome burns because the net worth of the cash received for exports. As long as cash to pay for imports continue to exceed the cash received for exports, breaking that cash into many others currency will change nothing, the cash crunch for foreign transactions will continue.

I am so, so pleased that the Zanu PF’s phony factional wars are over and the regime can finally grappling with the real big issue - the economic meltdown – after nearly two years on French leave listening to Mafira kureva. Here is a regime known for vote rigging, wanton violence, looting and all the other dirty tricks to cheat its political opponents and the nation at large to stay in power. For VP Mnangagwa to have an chance to become president, Zanu PF must now threaten, beat or even murder the root causes of economic meltdown and deliver economic recovery.

If the regime’s handling of the cash crunch is anything to go by then my fellow Zimbabweans Zanu PF has finally met more that the regime’s match in the economy! Zanu PF cannot bribe or cheat its way out of the serious economic meltdown the nation is facing.

Unemployment rate now a nauseating 90% plus; millions living in abject poverty; the proposed bond notes have already triggered a run on the banks as many people are determined to take out as much of their cash as possible before it is converter to worthless bond notes; etc. There is no doubt that the present economic situations already intolerable and yet as long as the regime stays in power things are set to get even worse.

To end Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown the nation must first end the political system that spawned it the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship that has allowed mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness to grow and spread like cancerous tumours.

Zanu PF has cheated and rigged elections to avoid regime change but the serious economic meltdown will force regime change because it cannot be bribed, cheated or murdered!

It is the economy stupid!

4 comments:

  1. @ Chipikiri

    The bond notes will help ease the cash crunch for local transactions but in a supermarket country where imports outweigh exports and the bond notes are legal tender for local transactions only the pressure on the bond notes to devalue will be immediate. Everyone with any brain will be queuing to withdraw all their cash from the foreign currency denominated accounts before it is converted to a bond notes denominated account.
    For a long time many people have accepted the Zanu PF ethos that we can change everything we like in the country as long as we do no change Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies. We have suffered under this no-regime-change mantra for decades. We have watched with dismay as the country’s once prosperous economy has gone to the dogs unable to do anything to stop it because to have any meaningful economic reform we needed meaningful political change, regime change.
    “Marco Rubio, one of the failed candidates in the most recent Republican primary election in the USA, made a remarkable statement about failing policies,” you said.
    “We must change the policies by changing the people who make those policies!” In short, change the President. Change Parliament. Change the Governor of the Reserve Bank. Simple. Otherwise, billions, trillions….” You have hit the nail on the head there.
    No-regime-change was nonsense, an oxymoron, given Mugabe still claimed after each election that the election was “free, fair and credible”. Zimbabweans must demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms necessary for ensuring the next elections are indeed free, fair and credible.
    The only way out of Zimbabwe’s present economic mess is holding credible free and fair elections!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right if anything is going to force this regime to accept meaningful democratic changes, it is the economy.

    The regime has already imposed limits to how much individuals can get from cash machines and from the banks and how much can send out of the country a clear message for all with ears to hear and eyes to see that the bond notes will soon be worthless.

    Going back to the hyper-inflation rates of 2008 will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back; the people of Zimbabwe will be as determined to remove Zanu PF as they were in 2008. If the party resorts to the same wanton violence as it did in 2008 there is no doubt it will not get away with it.

    Zanu PF is in a real tight corner and each day that bring worse economic news makes it that much more difficult for regime to remain credible.

    Zanu PF factional wars have softened Zanu PF but it is the "economy stupid" that is going to deliver the coup de grace! How the high and mighty have fallen!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr Mangudya is now trying to assure the nation there will be no inflation because the situation now is different from the early 2000s!

    “We are now in a multi-currency system so things are very different, and it is not proper to compare the two periods,” Dr Mangudya assures us.



    “An important difference is that the 2008 period was characterised by hyperinflation, but our economy right now is experiencing the opposite of inflation.



    “There is no sign whatsoever that we are going to experience hyperinflation.”



    This is nonsense, the introduction of the bond notes means we are moving back from using foreign currency exclusively to using the bond notes for local transactions and foreign currency for external transactions! The bond notes are not going to be accepted outside Zimbabwe.



    We are going to experience hyperinflation that is a given. I hope Dr Mangudya will do the honourable thing and resign when the inflation hits the double figure percentage mark!

    This may not be the end of Zanu PF but it must be the beginning of the end!

    ReplyDelete
  4. As a united opposition front against President Robert Mugabe gains momentum, the beleaguered governing Zanu-PF has been thrown into panic, desperately trying to woo back expelled members, a South Africa-based think-tank NKC African Economics has said.

    Zimbabweans must be careful not to be taken for a ride by some of these so-called think-tank. Zanu PF has not "won" past elections on the basis of free, fair and credible elections but its ability to rig elections. Nothing has been done to stop the party rigging the next elections and so are we to believe that the opposition will once again win the elections “regardless of Zanu PF’s vote rigging shenanigans” as Tsvangirai thought last time?

    An opposition coalition without meaningful democratic reforms will accomplish nothing!

    Zanu PF has lots and lots of money and it has been known to spend millions on such companies as NIKUV, the Israeli company, to tamper with the voters roll; Zimbabweans must expect a lot misleading “independent” opinion from all corners of the world, Zanu PF is good at this sort of thing!

    ReplyDelete