‘2023 will be a rough and tough year for working families’ – Tendai Biti

Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti has predicted that “2023 will be a rough and tough year for working families” citing that inflation will be worsened by government mismanagement of the exchange rate and “unrestrained spending”.

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing skyrocketing inflation compounded by the financial crisis as the Zimbabwean dollar continues to crumble against the US dollar.

Biti believes that the situation will worsen and he accuses the Zanu-PF government of mismanaging the economy.

“2023 will be a rough and tough year for working families in Zimbabwe. Inflation will remain in hyperinflation mode driven by the total mismanagement of the exchange rate, unrestrained government spending , the printing of money by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and corruption.

“End year, the Zimbabwean dollar was trading at ZW$1200 to US$1. The rate will continue to slide driven by huge import demands ,money printing and lack of confidence in the ZW$. For all intents and purposes de -dollarization has failed and Zimbabwe is largely a US$ cash economy.

“As we have argued in Parliament, output will shrink due to excessive lending rates of 200%, the crippling power supply, over regulation and the unstable exchange rate. Zimbabwe’s growth will therefore be less than 1%.

“The failure to address the sovereign debt crises is an absolute shame. The debt crisis is placing a development premium on Zimbabwe as same is unable to access huge amounts of capital seating with the IFIs. Genuine structural reforms are required which are way beyond Zanu-PF.”

The main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change Vice President who served as Finance Minister of Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013 added:

“Most importantly a new Transformation Consensus is required that will focus on recalibrating the political polity to come up with a new social contract and secondly attend to the developmental and social deficit.

“Like the Asian Tigers , Singapore, Taiwan etc Zim must find a way of bypassing the Industrial Revolution and fast trekking itself into the 22nd Century.

“Put simply, how do we build a US$200 billion economy in the next ten years with a per capita income of US$6000.This is the Great New Zimbabwe Dream. It will happen sooner rather than later,” Biti argued.