HARARE - President Robert Mugabe yesterday finally addressed Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown as the leader of nation and dutifully pronounced that the country’s economy has, through the largely discredited Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset), been recovering.
Yes, Mugabe’s statement is a shocker because the economy is ailing, the majority of people are living from hand to mouth, unemployment has reached scandalous levels, companies are shutting down everyday and people are dying due to lack of access to medical care.
But speaking at this year’s President’s Shoot Medal prize-giving ceremony at Cleveland Rifle Range in Harare yesterday, Mugabe assured the nation that the country’s economy is on a recovery path.
He said through ZimAsset, the economy was going to recover. But what our 90-year-old President did not tell us is where is he going to get the $27 billion needed to fund the highly-ambitious project. Mugabe’s government is struggling to pay civil servants on time and the salary bill is just around $155 million yet he still hopes to grab $27 billion from somewhere.
Yes, as the leader of a huge family called Zimbabwe, Mugabe has a right to calm the nerves of his desperate children but must produce tangible evidence that indeed the economy is recovering.
At a time when Mugabe insists that the economy is recovering, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and economic experts say Zimbabwe is headed for a massive meltdown if government does not come up with measures to rescue the economy.
But Mugabe retains his faith in ZimAsset, which his deputy Joice Mujuru recently said will take about 40 years to start bearing fruit.
“ZimAsset will have all government and quasi-government institutions formulate their strategic action plans to be supervised through the Integrated Result Based Management (IRBM).
“IRBM is a strategic management tool aimed at effectively eradicating mal-performance. It focuses on enhancing commitment and duty consciousness in all government work-force,” Mugabe said.
He told the gathering, made up of service chiefs and ministers, that he was confident the implementation of IRBM would effectively bring about the desired success and the much-needed economic turn-around.
What this economy needs are practical solutions to resolve the economic crisis we are facing as a nation, not ZimAsset, which is merely a Zanu PF campaign gimmick which even officials in government have failed to explain.
Millions of people are looking up to Mugabe to provide them with employment, a sound economy and an improvement in liquidity.
When Zanu PF inherited the economy from Rhodesia, Zimbabwe was once viewed as the jewel of Africa but the economy is now in ruins.