"I want to say I am guilty as charged for collecting exporters' money at a fixed exchange rate of 1:1 when prices had risen by three or four times." – RBZ Governor, Dr John Mangudya.

Harare – The past week has been quite eventful following the presentation of the Monetary Policy Statement (MPS2019). Observations derived from its review exposes elements of deception and poor governance.

Poll instability and economic mismanagement have exerted a weighty albatross on the economy’s neck. Over the last two decades or so, traditional surpluses in agricultural products and industrial raw materials have either diminished, disappeared or remained just that, raw, turning Zimbabwe, once regarded as the bread basket of Southern Africa as net importer of agricultural products and aid reliant.

The volume of exports have been in decline notably since 1998 while both exports and imports have shifted away from the EU to the South African market.

This damage has been inflicted by a series of ill-conceived economic policies which can however, be reversed if government embarks on an honest approach conducive to attracting local and external investments as well as restore market confidence.

Following the historical events of the November 2017 which ultimately forced former President Robert Mugabe to reluctantly resign, the nation hoped change has come and that responsibility was bestowed upon President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Aware of the challenges at hand, he promised to address the economic and political instabilities which have plundered the country into a period of long suffering, unfortunately up until now the nation is still stuck in a pool of uncertainty. What has gone wrong?

MPS of 2019 came with a fundamental towards policy shift by government towards currency liberalisation highlighted by the introduction of the inter-bank forex market and the subsequent denominating of the existing RTGS balances into RTGS dollars, an effective currency. The succeeding denial and attempts to hoodwink the generality by assuming that the move was only meant to categorise bond and RTGS into 1 family, is not only pathetic but treasonous.

Speaking during the MPS2019 review breakfast meeting held in the Capital last week Friday, both the RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya and Finance Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube made damning assertions which ultimately exposes the degree of poor economic governance, sums up macroeconomic disequilibria and other government’s self-inflicted wounds.

On his part, Mangudya admitted to prejudicing exporters by taking their money at unfavourable rate regardless of inflation rising at least three times since October last year.

"I want to say I am guilty as charged for collecting exporters' money at a fixed exchange rate of 1:1 when prices had risen by three or four times," said Mangudya.

Ncube who has not been short of displaying policy inconsistencies himself since being appointed the treasury chief last year, also exposed government’s poor policy induced crisis by finally admitting that 1:1 exchange rate was destroying the economy.

"The fixed exchange rate of 1:1 was killing us, it was not sustainable and cost us US$2 billion. It was also punishing exporters," he said.

So much has been government’s poor policies that the economy has sink into a deeper crisis characterised by fuel shortages, cash shortages, high inflation, tense political atmosphere among others.

Now the question that is hanging around is has the government introduced a new currency? Based on pure logic it seems so, but once again government's denial is fueling more confusion and uncertainty in the market and this keeps on dragging the economy down.

“No, we cannot say that, not at all. What we can say is that we have grouped the RTGS balances, the bond note and the bond coins into one family called RTGS dollars,” Mangudya said whilst denying that government has introduced a new currency.

A reference to Ncube’s response back in November last year after being asked by Equity Axis why government was not liberalising the exchange rate contradicts Mangudya’s response and this exposes the level of deception at high offices which keep on dragging the economy down.

“What currency is there to liberalise? You can’t liberalise without a currency,” Ncube said.

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