Yes Mr President, ZANU (PF) is full of liars indeed!
By Vince Musewe
I duly take notice of President Mugabe’s most recent statement that ZANU (PF) is full of liars and agree with him.
The monumental lie which has been sold to all and sundry by ZANU (PF) is that we are facing an economic meltdown because of sanctions. This blame game has gone on for far too long that it has completely disempowered us to come up with our own solutions but instead we are looking elsewhere for solutions.
Our economic sovereignty has been compromised with our complicit approval that we as Zimbabweans are victims and are therefore unable to lift ourselves up and must instead be forever be dependent on others to mastermind solutions for us. That is a lie which has unfortunately created a victim hood mentality which we must all reject.
We Zimbabweans have the intellect and the knowledge that we require to turn-around our economy. We have the assets and the resources to do so and the only way we can proceed is through a collective consensus on what needs to be done.
There is no place for the continued arrogance of ZANU (PF) that they can go it alone. I think we have given them enough time to prove this fallacy and it is now time to create an inclusive solution to our economic problems. We have to reinvent Zimbabwe-together.
We must create a new paradigm that says that Zimbabwe can indeed be a self-reliant economy with food security as it used to be. We must believe that we can indeed repackage Zimbabwe and attract capital from the free market and not rely on the IMF as our only saviours. We made that mistake with ESAP.
We also can no longer rely on what is predominantly a primary product producing economy to meet our future needs because we will remain vulnerable to countries like China and others who have the power to determine the demand and price of our raw primary products.
It is clear that the problems we are facing cannot be solved by the same old mentality of exclusive political and economic institutions which created them in the first place.
In this old paradigm, we have inadvertently marginalised the intellect and the experience of millions of Zimbabweans out there solely based on a partisan and patronage ticket. This is our real problem.
The other lie by ZANU (PF) is that our economy is recovering or that it will grow next year without us using a new formula. That is not true. Economies grow because of investment in their capacity to produce more goods and services.
Economies grow with a vibrant middle class with increasing disposable incomes to increase the local aggregate demand for goods and services. All these are missing. In fact our economy is contracting and shedding jobs by the day.
We will not grow until we insist on the rule of law and the respect of private property ownership. We will not grow until we emulate China and welcome investors to Zimbabwe as long as they create jobs. We will definitely not grow without utilising our full human capital potential.
There is no sane black Zimbabwean who is against indigenisation but this process must be clear and transparent to avoid political interference or discretion. In fact most successful economies such as Germany, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and others, are driven by small enterprises.
In Zimbabwe we have thousands and thousands of 100% indigenous owned small enterprises and all we need is to rather focus on attracting capital for these companies which will create not only jobs but more economic value for our country.
There are so many lies out there peddled by ZANU (PF) and I am glad that even the President has realised that he is backed by a team of liars. Because of that our country will never live to its full potential.
The solution for Zimbabwe’s problems lies within our collective intellect and power. It lies neither in the exclusive club of ZANU (PF) liars nor in the East.
It’s time for a new team indeed!
Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on [email protected]
