The Sunday Mail
Phew!!!
As the tumult and upheaval caused by the ongoing economic reforms — which began in earnest in 2017 — subsides, Bishop Lazarus cannot help but reflect on how tempestuous the past two years have been.
But this was not without warning.
President ED had long told Zimbabweans to gird their loins and brace for an unavoidable and inevitable period of belt-tightening.
Exactly this month two years ago, he eerily warned that “there is need for us to apply fundamentals that may be harsh to our people, but necessary for us to cross the bridge”.
However, nothing could have prepared Zimbabweans for how vertiginous and heady the roller-coaster ride of economic reforms could be.
When the reforms began, civil servants salaries chewed more than 90 percent of Government revenues, and authorities were struggling to keep with payments, which were made every other second month.
Infrastructure projects had naturally come to a screeching halt.
It was that dire!
Foreign currency shortages had also peaked after years of unrestricted outflows dating to the overly liberal policies adopted when Tendai Biti was Treasury boss.
Many do not even remember that during this period, individuals could salt away US$10 000 per trip.
It was perhaps the largest ever legally condoned externalisation in modern times.
How human beings easily forget.
Masterstroke
It was this humongous mess that Professor Mthuli Ncube sought to clean when he was sworn in as Finance Minister on September 10, 2018.
He quickly moved to the construction site to dig the foundations of a new economy.
Although it was an onerously daunting and unpopular task, it had to be done.
You see, a construction site, any construction site for that matter, is naturally messy and in its early stages it is difficult to make out what kind of structure would rise from the dirt.
As had largely been budgeted for, when the decision to separate Foreign Currency Accounts (FCAs) from RTGS accounts was made, which signalled the beginning of the currency reforms, the market — spooked by fear of the unknown — naturally panicked.
Shortages of basic commodities and queues that were reminiscent of the excruciatingly painful 2007-2008 period resurfaced.
It was a political wet dream for a sulking MDC Alliance, which was smarting from the July 30 election defeat.
Many of the impressionable opposition supporters thought that the prophecy that had been made by Tendai Biti on August 1 was coming to pass.
In a hubris-filled interview with Peter Fabricius of South Africa’s Daily Maverick, the foul-mouthed Biti had actually “predicted” that the “unriggable economy” would inexorably spin out of control, crash and burn, and with it the “incompetent” ZANU PF Government.
“. . . the international community is not going to be fooled by this madness (ZANU PF’s election victory). We will make sure they don’t get a cent . . . I can’t tell you how but I can tell you we have done it before . . . you can’t rig the economy, you can’t rig trust and confidence . . .” he declared.
Even some lily-livered ruling party officials feared the economic tempest would run the governing party into the ground.
It reminded the Bishop of how Jesus’ disciples once thought they would drown in the Sea of Galilee even though they were carrying the Son of Man himself.
“That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
“He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:35-40).
Even when the hysteria and market turmoil spilled into 2019, the reforms continued, as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe liberalised the exchange rate on February 20.
It stoked even more panic.
Unfazed, ED actually doubled down.
In an interview with Capitalk 100.4 FM on June 14, 2019, he reiterated for the umpteenth time that reforms were unavoidable.
“We will reform; it’s the only way to go. While it will hurt and cause temporary upheaval, we have to continue on the path of reform . . .
“Yes, today is tough, but tomorrow is better and better.
“There is only one path — reform, reform, reform, reform!”
No sooner had armchair critics and doomsday prophets caught their breath than ED announced a week later that the country would introduce a new currency.
It was bonkers, they said.
In November the same year, a new currency was born, and Zimbabweans, for the first time in a decade, were able to transact using their own currency.
To cut the long story short, the exchange rate and price stability that we have enjoyed for more than 16 weeks, especially after the introduction of the foreign currency auction system on June 23, including the aggressive and sustained attacks on rogue mobile money operators, is the result of cerebral efforts that have been complemented by unyielding resolve and ruthless efficiency.
This is what makes the Second Republic a different creature altogether.
The sky is falling
Well, a sustainably recovering, viable and vibrant economy means different things to different people.
For the MDC Alliance it spells doom.
Some of the opposition party’s supposedly learned head honchos usually like to quote The Art of War, which is understood to have been written by Chinese military strategist San Tzu sometime in the 5th century.
It is perhaps one of the most quoted works by most Zimbabweans.
Bishop Lazi unhappily discovered that most people who quote from it wouldn’t have as much as flipped a single page of this military treatise.
They merely regurgitate quotes they would have heard from somewhere or someone, which is not surprising.
The knowledgeable and intelligent might quote from it but the wise live it.
According to San Tzu, one of the major strategic blunders that a warrying party can make is to underestimate the strength of its opponent.
“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent,” he said, adding: “He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.”
He said one of the major winning strategies is to “appear weak when you are strong; strong when you are weak”.
The MDC-A, woefully led by a callow and ineffectual leadership, severely underestimated the sheer power, will, resolve and capacity of the renewed ZANU-PF to turn around the economy, and for this it will surely pay a heavy price.
You see, the opposition, together with its coterie of cheerleaders in some foreign missions, civil society and non-governmental organisations, were for long sustained and succoured by the protest vote.
Shorn of the protest vote, which feeds off apathy, disillusionment, crisis, violence, disharmony and pessimism, the MDC-A would be embarrassingly defrocked.
This is why a floundering and failing economy is a handy tool for its political gravitas.
What Prof Mthuli Ncube has managed to do — to place the economy on an even keel — should definitely be scary for the opposition.
Few underestimate what a stable Zimbabwe dollar and stable prices mean.
It creates a virtuous circle that spawns confidence in the local currency not only as a unit of exchange, but a store of value as well.
This means the transacting public will no longer have the urge to dispose it in favour of foreign currencies, and this progressively releases pressure on the exchange rate.
But most importantly, it creates a meritorious system where the most productive individuals in the economy, rather than speculators, are justly rewarded.
And, sooner rather than later, when the authorities feel that the newly attained economic stability has been sufficiently anchored, decisive steps to eliminate cash shortages, which will make the Zimbabwe dollar more transactable, will be made.
This would restore the economy to the normalcy we were used to before it became the subject of targeted and sustained attacks by the West at the turn of the millennium.
The new National Development Plan, which will soon replace the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), will likely add oomph to current economic development efforts.
With the noise, hysteria and angst borne out of the turmoil of economic reform gradually dying down, the incredible work on development projects that has been underway for the past two years can now begin to shine through and be appreciated even more.
And with the recovery of the economy, the fortunes of the opposition, which is clearly not tethered on any ideological foundation, will naturally decline.
While the stimulus effect of major infrastructure projects such as roads, dam construction and agriculture are beginning to be felt, the massive projects such as platinum ventures being undertaken by Great Dyke Investments (GDI) and Karo, including the imminent US$1 billion steel project by Tsingshan Steel, among others — which have a long gestation period — have not yet come on stream.
It will surely be a crisis for doomsday prophets and armchair critics.
We are headed for interesting times.
Bishop out!
