Juice better than ZimAsset: Mwonzora

via Juice better than ZimAsset: Mwonzora – DailyNews Live by Letwin Nyambayo  28 MARCH 2014

The MDC says its economic blueprint Jobs Upliftment Investment Capital and Environment(JUICE) launched in 2012 could have worked better than the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) currently flaunted as a panacea to Zimbabwe’s economic problems.

“We would have done better because JUICE appeals to investors. It is not a populist policy which scares away investors with indigenisation.

“Had it been implemented, there would not be liquidity problems in Zimbabwe. People would get their money from banks,” party spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said adding that; “We were better.”

Mwonzora said his party had every intention to implement the policy if they had succeeded in the July 31, 2013 election.

“Unfortunately, because we are not in government, we were unable to implement the panacea for Zimbabwe’s economic and political ills. We continue as a party to advice Zimbabweans on the correct economic policies.

“The current economic problems in the country are a testimony that ZimAsset does not work,” he told the Daily News.

Mwonzora said his party launched JUICE as an alternative economic blueprint meant to remove Zimbabwe from the economic quagmire it is mired in.

“We launched the economic blueprint in response to the un-workability of the so-called indigenisation policy by (Savior) Kasukuwere and Zanu PF,” he said.

Through JUICE, the mainstream MDC targeted creating one million new jobs between 2013 and 2018 with projected average GDP growth of 8 percent per annum.

ZimAsset however, has been heavily criticised as economists say the economy is getting worse.

In an earlier interview with the Daily News, economist Bongani Ngwenya said there was no change in Zimbabwe’s economy and things were set to get even worse.

Another economist, Eric Bloch said the time frame set by the government to achieve its goals showed it was being over optimistic in its economic growth and can only reach such growth through changing policies and increasing foreign investment.

Bloch projected a 3 percent economic growth as compared to 6,3 percent stated by the ZimAsset.

“We are being over optimistic in our economic growth for 2014,” he said.