"Inflation is caused by TSP failure to factor in drought" - professional whitewashing the Zanu PF tomb W Mukori

Zimbabwe is well and truly stuck in this hell-on-earth mess! What makes our situation so, so frustrating about it is this is a man-made mess. For the last 39 years and counting the ruling party, Zanu PF, has followed voodoo economic policies that have dragged this nation deeper and deeper into this economic mess. 

Worse still, Zanu PF has abused its power and authority; the regime has its heavy tyrannical boot on the nation’s neck; stopping us getting out of the mess. 

But what makes Zimbabwe’s tragic economic and political situation truly unbearable is Zanu PF leaders’ contemptuous disregard of the truth and their indifference to the tragic human suffering the mess has caused. 

“I will say largely it (Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP)) is still on track by understanding what we want to achieve with the TSP,” George Guvamatanga told Trevor Ncube on A Conversation with Trevor. 

“The major achievement we wanted was fiscal consolidation. We wanted to be able to control deficit. We were running deficits, which were in double figures and government sometimes could pay the civil servants two months late.

“So we needed to address those issues and make sure that we lived within our means.

“We also wanted to contain the trade deficit or trade gap that was also running away.

“Those were two of the major objectives of the TSPs to say how do we stabilise the economy and we have managed to achieve that.”

The Zimbabwe economy has been in ICU for decades now because of years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. There is nothing in the TSP to address these two cancers. 

George Guvamatanga is the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance and has worked in Zimbabwe’s banking sector for years. It is therefore shocking that he, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube and the rest of the Zanu PF leaders could be that naive to expect any meaningful economic recovery without first curing the nation of cancerous mismanagement and corruption. 

15 years ago, Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate soared to nauseating heights of 80% a sorrowful reminder of the dramatic collapse of country’s agricultural sector, commerce and industry and mining sector. TSP has failed to revive the economy and unemployment has surged to 90% plus today. 

It is therefore nonsense to claim that TSP has improved the country’s trade deficit when very little has been done to revive the country’s productive sectors. 

Indeed, one of the factors fuelling the country’s inflation is the country’s skewed trade deficit. Zimbabwe is spending more on imports than it is earning in exports and so the demand for foreign currency exceed supply. Instead of acknowledging this Guvamatanga offer a feeble excuse for the country’s hyperinflation.

“The failures have been around inflation. We are out of the inflation target and we are also out of our reserve money target," he said.

"When we came up with the TSP we did not factor in the drought, we still believed that we would have a good season,” he said.

“We did not factor in Cyclone Idai and we did not even consider that because our power is largely generated off water and that if you have a drought then you do not have water at Kariba Dam, which is currently at 19% capacity.

“Because of that the electricity generation also went down and when it did, productivity came down.”

Zanu PF destroyed the nation’s agricultural sector, once upon a time the envy of the region, 20 years ago with the chaotic and often violent seizure of white owned farms. The recent drought would have had little effect if the nation’s own grain silos were full at the on set. The silos were empty.  To make the bad situation worse, the nation wasted US$ 3 billion in command agriculture but had little to show for it.

The problems caused by electricity power cuts were chickens coming home to roost too; the regime has failed to invest in power generation ever since coming to power 39 years ago. The Audit General’s report shows that ZESA has lost millions of dollars in corruption and mismanagement, problems Secretary Guvamatanga, like the rest of the Zanu PF leaders, has completely ignored.

Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is not so much that people do not know what is going on - the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans know the country is in this economic mess because this Zanu PF government is corrupt and incompetent. 

Zimbabweans have wrung their hands in helpless despair unable to hold Zanu PF to democratic account much less remove the regime from office in the face of the growing mountain of evidence of the party’s failures the human suffering and deaths caused. Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections and shoot dead those who dare to protest; a common and recurring theme of the party’s 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule. 

Of course, Guvamatanga knows without addressing corruption TSP was doom, knows that Zanu PF is illegitimate, etc.; he only pretends not to know to secure his position and a share of the spoils of power. 

Zanu PF’s owes its long reign of terror to seeming outstanding citizens and professionals like Minister Mthuli Ncube, Minister Kirsty Coventry, Permanent Secretary George Guvamatanga who have falsified the party’s record for thirty pieces of silver. 

The Zanu PF dictatorship would have never taken root much less lasted 40 years if it was not for the many mercenaries and sell-outs falsifying the truth about the party's ruinous and murderous record; whitewashing the tomb to hide the rot within!