INFORMATION minister Chris Mushohwe’s claims that the digitisation programme will create four million jobs and generate $1 billion in annual revenue have been rubbished as “voodoo” economics by a tired regime.
Source: Opposition lambasts ‘daydreaming’ Mushohwe – NewsDay Zimbabwe February 11, 2017
BY PAIDAMOYO MUZULU
Mushohwe made the remarks this week, when briefing media stakeholders about the digitisation project that will see the country have 12 digital television stations, when completed.
He said the development would create a boon for content creators and broadcasters.
The opposition see this as another economic hallucination like the elusive 2,2 million jobs promised in the Zanu PF 2013 election manifesto.
MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu, said: “He (Mushohwe) needs help. He knows this won’t happen.”
People’s Democratic Party spokesman, Jacob Mafume, said: “It’s voodoo economics. No matter how many witchdoctors they visit, that will not happen with this government. They are losing jobs rather than making them.”
“Maybe he (Mushohwe) does not know the full effect of digitisation. As a government, they have failed to create two million jobs and then to think his department will create four million jobs through that process is beyond dreaming.”
The Welshman Ncube-led MDC spokesman, Kurauone Chihwayi, also weighed in, saying the minister should stop being “generous in his assumptions”.
“One does not need five Ordinary Level subjects, including mathematics and English, to dismiss the claims as rubbish,” he said.
Chihwayi said the government should concentrate on things that it could control such as runaway corruption, which is now rife across all sectors of the economy.
“The regime should resuscitate the dead key sectors of the economy and arrest corruption. The minister is clueless and too dull to justify his stay in office after failing to open local industry,” he said.
Zimbabwe missed the International Telecommunications Union June 2015 digitisation deadline.
The country started with border areas so that signals from Zimbabwe do not stray into neighbouring countries. People will need set-top boxes to access the digital signals.
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