Zimbabweans need a break from crises –

Source: Zimbabweans need a break from crises – DailyNews Live

STAFF WRITER      14 August 2018

HARARE – One of our main stories in yesterday’s edition spoke about price
hikes and shortages that have returned to haunt crisis-weary Zimbabweans.

The latest shortages as well as price increases come as sad reminders of
the trying 2007-8 period that was characterised by record hyperinflation
through which resilient Zimbabweans endured.

The country’s citizens have suffered long enough. After surviving the
tumultuous years of 2008-9, people were hoping that the just-ended
harmonised elections would usher in an administration that would be
acceptable to the rest of the world. The rampant printing of cash in 2008
led to inflation hitting 500 billion percent, wiping out ordinary
citizens’ savings and pensions.

However, this was not to be as controversy erupted over the results. At
least six people were killed in post-election violence on August 1, as
opposition supporters flooded the streets of Harare, voicing their concern
over the delay in announcing presidential election results and perceived
bias by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec).

As things stand, the election controversy is still on and the country’s
woes are getting worse. Just like the much-loathed Robert Mugabe era, the
powers that be are failing to come up with a lasting solution to the
problems of cash shortages and price hikes obviously speaking to certain
economic fundamentals not being addressed.

Bank queues have continued across the country, despite the fact that
crisp-new notes of the surrogate bond notes litter street corners that
have virtually been colonised by illegal money-changers.

Whoever emerges as Zimbabwe’s leader after the pending court challenge by
the MDC Alliance has a tough task ahead. First will be assembling a
Cabinet team that will craft policies that will take Zimbabwe out of the
current crisis.

Mugabe’s ruinous policies and his inept Cabinet team that was inherited by
President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa were largely to blame for shepherding
us into the current crises.

The banking sector itself needs to reclaim the confidence that was
beginning to manifest following the stabilising years of the Government of
National Unity between 2009-13.

When Zanu PF reclaimed victory in the 2013 elections, that confidence
dissipated wholly.

Zimbabwe can not continue on this trajectory – rampant cash shortages,
price increases, infrastructural destruction, institutionalised
corruption, a health delivery system that is almost on its knees and
several other ills that have become synonymous with the southern African
nation.