After claiming that the government was planning to introduce a new currency, Former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti is now even calling for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to be closed down as it is the source of the current economic problems.
As justification for his assertion, Mr. Biti said that during his tenure as a finance minister he ran the economy without the RBZ’s intervention so that tells its not that of a big deal to close down the central bank. Here’s the full statement by Tendai Biti:
The reason why there has been a delay is that they have been caught pants down by my tweet. They were flagrant. The delay is helping the economy because what government was doing was putting poison into the economy. It was going to introduce disaster in the economy because there have been no economic fundamentals, no exports and the government is spending available money like an aphrodisiac.
There are differences between the approach of the Minister of Finance and the approach of the Governor of the Reserve Bank. The Finance minister has openly blamed the RBZ governor John Mangudya for sponsoring quasi-fiscal activities which have contributed to the large chunk of the budget deficit.
It is common knowledge that the RBZ is the centre of the problems in Zimbabwe. We don’t need the RBZ. In fact, the RBZ should be shut down. I handled that
Ministry without the assistance of the RBZ. They need to strengthen the use of the multi-currency regime and pursue the option of the Rand Monetary Union.
To some extent, I do agree with Tendai Biti, that the RBZ’s policies and activities are the reason why we are in this mess. The RBZ should have made sure that the Chinese and other foreign nationals never shipped out our US dollars some years ago. If the Chinese hadn’t taken our US dollars, we wouldn’t have had US dollar shortages which prompted the introduction of bond notes, which in turn introduced currency black markets and black markets, which in turn fueled inflation.
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5 comments
Hmmm, not really sure that i agree that the Chinese are to blame for the export of the US$. The government, with the help of the RBZ are doing a very good job of that now. What little resources we seem to have at the moment seems to go on things that this country does not need. What is it costing the country every time ED steps on that plane to go visit some place? Surely there are cheaper ways of doing the exact same thing? For me, its obvious to me that what is really required in this country is simple. The economy is shot. We need measures in place to fix the economy. We can start with a land audit, take the farms that are idle from ministers who have these farms that are not using them, give them to those that can produce, we need to get the farms back to a position where we are exporting again, this will generate foreign currency. Work on industry, get the businesses back up and running, start getting the local investors investing in their own country, if a foreign investor sees that the local investors are doing well, then they too will invest. Overhaul the current legislation, for example, the legislation for workers is very stacked against the employers, make this a more fair playing field. No one in their right minds will want to employ workers when the law is stacked against them to do so. The list goes on. I feel that these measures need to be implemented before we can even think about introducing a new Zimbabwe currency, with out the backing of the economy, what ever currency is floated will soon be in a inflation race.
Blaming the Chinese for taking our US dollars is mere xenophobia.
Absolutely amazing how no one talks about how the Mugabe family have personally raped a pillaged this nation, supported by zanu pf, bring back half of Mugabe money and that will pay off our entire nation’s debt, they should all be in jail!!!!!
Collapsing of Zimbabwe economy has nothing to do with Chinese, zimbabweans killed their own economy so they have to fix it right, especially zim leaders. You send war vets to envade the farms,firms, after that did you came with a better production. Answer is no.
The reason why Zimbabwe is not getting any aid from the donors to boost the economy as far as Zim currency is a concern, A father cannot wear most expensive shoes and goes to a neighbour, ”plz borrow me a bag of mealie meal my kids are dying of hunger” who do you think is going to take you seriously
Secondly most of the ministers are keeping bulk sums of USdollars in their homes, that’s the reason why Zimbabwe banks doesn’t have money, RBZ is just a bank but cannot make its own money