The Sunday Mail
Nothing quite makes the opposition and its posse of foreign handlers climax more than vertiginously rising prices of basic commodities and an exchange rate threatening to go haywire.
It gives oxygen to their sagging political fortunes and hope to their hopeless political enterprise.
So, as greedy retailers continue to swap price tags in sympathy with galloping prices, and fuel prices creep northwards — and with them the price of goods and services — you can be sure that they are quite thrilled; excited even. Volatile prices potentially make workers restive and the population anxious, which is obviously a recipe for unrest.
For the opposition, it creates a valuable asset — disaffection with the Government — which can be easily weaponised and used as a convenient political mobilisation tool to try and win political power.
Bishop Lazi told you last week that the opposition “now solely clings on the hope that somehow the economy will implode and give them a fighting chance through an irate urban vote”.
Supermarkets in the UK have started rationing cooking oil
Clearly, this will never happen!
Those who think the opposition will someday define and articulate its ideology or come up with a compelling and sellable manifesto and action plan should perish the thought.
Ever since its conception, the opposition has always relied on people’s suffering and poverty as a staircase to power and a possible pathway to State House.
This is why they will never speak out against or condemn US and EU sanctions on Zimbabwe, which they actively instigated, and cheer every bad news, which they inanely try to stick on Government’s supposed ineptitude.
You should have seen them last week as they cheered bread and cooking oil prices.
A gushing and ecstatic Fadzayi Mahere, spokesperson of Triple C, didn’t disappoint by recycling her usual tropes: “You cannot rig the economy” — whatever that means — and “We need new leaders”.
Pain of War
Unbeknown to our supposedly learned sister, who is either irredeemably naive or mischievous, or both, the pain we are experiencing at supermarket cash tills is the fallout from the fire and brimstone currently raining in Ukraine after Russia launched its special military operation on February 24.
The immediate pressure from rising hostilities in Eastern Europe came through soaring oil prices on the international market.
As global markets sneezed, we also caught the cold.
When we opened the year, petrol and diesel prices were pegged at US$1,41 and US$1,38 per litre respectively, but after last week’s reviews, petrol has since climbed to US$1,63 per litre, while diesel — a critical input for industry — has jumped to US$1,71.
It simply means both petrol and diesel have increased by US0,22 and US0,33 in that order since the beginning of the year.
This is quite a steep increase, especially within a period of 66 days since the conflict began. And the implications of rising fuel prices on costs of production and, by extension, prices of basic goods and services is quite apparent.
If only people knew efforts that are being invested by Government to temper rising prices through subsidies and blending, among many other creative interventions.
It could have been worse.
It seems, however, we might be having these challenges for some time.
Russia produces 11 percent of the world’s oil, supplies 40 percent — almost half — of the European Union (EU)’s gas and 27 percent of its oil, and as panicky European countries look elsewhere for supplies to wean themselves from heavy dependence on Moscow, this is likely to create pressure on the already available supplies and move prices even higher, which is bad news particularly for middle – and low-income countries.
What is also lost on people like Fadzayi Mahere, who late last year threw shades at interns at her law firm for coming to work classlessly “holding a loaf of bread in one hand and an avocado in the other” — presumably to gormandise during breakfast or lunch — is that, had it not been for the new political administration’s foresight and aggressive moves to ensure food security, we might have had to settle for seeing loaves of bread and confectionery in magazines and on TV due to dire shortages of wheat.
Kikikiki.
Russia and Ukraine account for 30 percent of global wheat supplies and now that they are at war, prices of cereals have been shooting through the roof, creating a lot of discomfort around the world.
Fortuitously and thankfully, last year we managed to an impressive haul of 330 000 tonnes of wheat, 30 000 tonnes shy of our current demand, but the highest on record.
It simply means Fadzayi’s interns, unlike in some parts of the world that are beginning to feel the heat from rising wheat prices, will have the privilege to enjoy their daily bread.
This year, we are even planning for wheat self-sufficiency at all costs.
As we are budgeting to put 70 000 hectares under the crop, an increase from 66 000 ha last year, ceteris paribus, we might definitely achieve our envisaged target, helping insulate the country from price shocks on the global market. Another sore point is cooking oil prices that have been similarly affected by the war. And Zimbabwean cooks really love their cooking oil; they actually put it in anything and everything.
Do you still remember last year when Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Sekai Nzenza became the butt of jokes after ignoramuses failed to appreciate her message that the hike in cooking oil prices then had been occasioned by rising crude oil prices on the international market? Apparently, they didn’t know that all the while the country has been depending on crude sunflower oil on account of limited local output.
It is not so funny now, is it?
You see, both Russia and Ukraine account for 60 percent of global sunflower supplies, and the conflict has naturally disrupted availability and prices of the commodity.
The world is, therefore, having to scramble for the few available resources.
But, the crisis is already being keenly felt in countries such as the United Kingdom, Iceland and Italy, which are now rationing the amount of sunflower cooking oil that customers can buy.
In Iceland, for example, some supermarkets are reportedly limiting sales of two-litre and five-litre bottles of sunflower oil to one per customer.
Argh, how the mighty have fallen.
There might be more pain in store yet, as Washington and its allies continue to arm Ukraine, including farmers that ordinarily should be working the land. So the problem of price escalations and associated challenges, which have since been flagged by the World Bank, is not peculiar to Zimbabwe, as the opposition would want to believe, but is a global phenomenon that has been wrought upon the world by the US’s overweening ambition to geopolitically corner its nemesis, Russia.
This is why inflation is accelerating to record highs in Turkey, the US, the Eurozone and UK, among many other jurisdictions.
US-dollar craving
But, on our shores, rising prices for critical raw materials and competition for scarce resources on the global market has meant fretful businesses have been raiding markets for foreign currency to hedge their positions through stocking inventories.
This has been causing exchange rate volatility and the subsequent wave upon wave of price adjustments.
Being creatures of habit, some mischievous fat cats and head honchos in business have been cutting corners and nonchalantly disregarding set regulations and laws; in the process, compounding an already challenging environment.
The Bishop once told you it is not those chaps standing on street corners and supermarket entrances that set the exchange rate and move large volumes of cash.
It is actually whiskey-drinking and prawn-munching greedy executives who sit in commodious offices of some reputable organisations playing match-making with available foreign currency.
These are the people that drive the rate, but comeuppance will come soon enough.
There have been repeated warnings sounded by the highest office of the land and action will naturally follow.
Beware!
There are also some self-serving quarters seeking to ride on the wave of current anxieties and angst to push for full dollarisation.
It will never happen for obvious scientific reasons. We have talked about the unenviable experiences some Latin American countries, not least our own country, have had with dollarisation.
The US dollar is like morphine: It will only make you high but won’t solve your problems.
For all its weaknesses, the RBZ foreign currency auction has managed to mediate the market and funnel resources to critical sectors that might otherwise fail to get funds in an overly liberalised market, where forex trade will be conducted according to the whims and caprices of forex barons.
Well, all that is needed in the face of the significant exogenous headwinds we are facing is to double down on import substitution, as we are already doing, through localising agricultural production, manufacturing and contracts for infrastructure development.
Over the past four years, we have been through droughts, cyclones and a pandemic, and we will definitely emerge stronger from the latest aberrations.
All those praying for Zimbabwe to fail for their own selfish ends, like folks in the opposition, are misplacing their expectations.
There is wisdom in Proverbs 24:3-9, which advises: “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.
The wise prevail through great power, and those who have knowledge muster their strength.
Surely you need guidance to wage war, and victory is won through many advisers. Wisdom is too high for fools; in the assembly at the gate they must not open their mouths.
Whoever plots evil will be known as a schemer. The schemes of folly are sin, and people detest a mocker.”
Take heed.
Bishop out!
