…while police beat farmers for wanting their cash
zwnews.com Political Reporter- Simba Moyo
The cash crisis in Zimbabwe now seem to be here to stay, only recently, it saw farmers who had brought in their tobacco to the floors running amok as they failed to access their cash, police in anti-riot gear had to be called in to whip them into line.
As the shortages of cash took shape few years ago, the government through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe(RBZ), acted swiftly by introducing bond notes, which were meant to be export incentive in some way, but being primarily to inject liquidity into the market.
Prior to the bond notes introduction, RBZ governor John Mangudya was brimming with confidence that they will solve the cash crisis that had reared its ugly head again, and challenged Zimbabweans that should that fail, he would resign.
Meanwhile, some economic analysts have described the bond notes as a failure, some are even calling for the adoption of the South African currency, the Rand, with others saying that won’t solve anything either, others are calling for Mangudya to resign.
According to Pastor Evan Mawarire, bond notes have served an adverse purpose to which they were purported to have been introduced for. He believes it is because of failed policies put in place that had seen the tobacco farmers failing to get paid for their produce, and urged Mangudya to resign for it.
He says it is disheartening that the elderly struggled during the liberation war, and worked hard afterwards to develop a strong economy, and that before they could wipe sweat off their brow, as they try to re-build the nation by utilising their land, the government robbed them again, as they can’t access the cash from their agricultural produce.
“They sleep in queues at banks after selling their tobacco, only to be surprisingly taxed, and cannot get the money out of the banks, yet the government was paid cash for that same tobacco.” He says and challenges the government to resolve the matter, and also restore confidence in the financial sector.
“The Honourable governor of the RBZ is on record committing to us as citizens that he would resign if bond notes failed. They have completely failed, we challenge him to honour his promise, and resign,” he says.
The facets of the failure of the bond notes can be seen from that, they are not at par with the US dollar, have served to take away the US dollar from the economy, they are even not accessible, and are not ‘incentive only’ as was claimed by Mangudya and government.
At the same time People’s Democratic Party leader Tendai Biti, who was once minister of finance is on record saying the bond notes were as useless as toilet paper, he also once urged the whole cabal Mangudya included to resign.
He that was President Robert Mugabe’s idea to try and bring back the local currency that had fallen from grace, and a way to rig the political office. “You can rig the elections, but, you can’t rig the economy,” he once said.
