“We need to liberalise fuel procurement. Anyone who has foreign currency, who can bring fuel should be able to bring it, but here is a catch; you can’t bring into Zimbabwe fuel in US$ and sell it in bond notes because soon you will run out of the foreign currency. So, the minute you liberalise fuel you must essentially redollarise the economy,” said Tendai Biti.
Zimbabwe has suffered from Zanu PF’s voodoo economics but MDC’s have failed the nation too with their half-baked solutions addressing one or two issues and ignoring the rest. Yes during his tenure as Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti did help bring some economic stability and the empty shop shelves filled with goods.
And yet the country’s commerce and industries continued to suffer and many closed with few if any new companies opening. Why? The problems of corruption, lawlessness and political instability were left untouched!
The primary task of the GNU was first and foremost to implement the democratic reforms and restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and even the right to life itself. Tendai Biti and company failed to implement even one reform.
What Tendai Biti is saying makes sense only in the context of his half-baked solutions, in the context of a dysfunctional Zimbabwe economy. If Zimbabwe’s economy is revived and is firing again in all cylinders the country will work and thrive with its own currency, call it RTGS$, Z$ or whatever, there will be no need to redollarise.
How many other nation out there who pay for their fuel with US$ but have their own currency and thriving economies?
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