By Wisdom Mumera.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)led by Morgan Tsvangirai has called for an executive meeting of its shadow cabinet this week where it is expected to discuss the nation’s challenges foremost being the cash crisis.
In a statement released by the party, the meeting is an urgent convergence to deal with the many challenges some of which are threatening to send the country back to 2008.
“President Tsvangirai will tomorrow (Thursday) convene an urgent Shadow Cabinet meeting to discuss pressing national issues; top of which is government’s ill-advised move to bring back the Zimbabwe dollar through the back door”, it reads.
Despite Government and the Reserve Bank’s stoic adamancy that the Bond notes, coming into circulation within two months, are not Zim-dollars the MDC has been adamant that they are a ploy towards the same and should be regarded as such.
Its shadow Minister of Finance, Mr Tapiwa Mashakada, this week explained what the party is deeming as the main causes of the cash crisis.
“Beginning January 2016, public and business confidence started to wane due to a plethora of reasons. People’s confidence in the banking system deteriorated fast and things came to a head in May 2016”.
Mashakada explained 10 reasons for the crisis chief among them being the Indigenisation policy, payment of war veterans transfers, tobacco farmers whose accounts were pounced upon by government to meet its recurrent expenditure and the ZANU PF implosion which has imperilled
the functionality of government.
Other reasons include a worsening trade deficit; poor revenue performance, illicit financial outflows, public borrowing, Real Time Gross Settlements (RTGS) and the Lima Agreement.
“Dollarisation requires that the economy be opened to business without any hindrances. At the end of the day, we can see that through its omissions and commissions, government is culpable for the current cash shortage”.
“The re-introduction of the Zim-dollar means that government will get access to the printing press where it can then create superficial credit in the economy through seignior age revenue services, a process which stokes hyperinflation”, he said.
The MDC-T meeting is however a sideshow to the problem and is not expected to bring about any transformational changes to a situation which is threatening to plunge the country into a de javu experience many are fearing.
Government on its part has remained adamant that the strength of the US dollar and illicit financial outflows are among the main reasons for the cash problem and the introduction of Bond notes will deal with the problem.
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