Now Mugabe wants Finance

And you won't believe why he wants it

When, as I exclusively predicted last week, Mugabe rang down the curtain on the inter-party power-sharing talks, and grabbed key ministries for his own, the issue of which party would control the finance ministry remained in doubt. But not any more.

Zanu-PF has told talks mediator Thabo Mbeki that it will continue to manage the country's economy - for the following incredible reason. It says that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is "too inexperienced", and therefore would not be up to the job. Whereas Zanu-PF is.

This, I would remind you, is the opinion of the government of a country where inflation is currently running at an unimaginable 231 million per cent.

Zanu-PF's chief parliamentary whip Joram Gumbo did me the honour of explaining the party's reasoning, and in my turn I will do you the honour of repeating his words as accurately as I can. Do try to stick with it.

Gumbo said:  "Mugabe thinks he should retain the porfolio of ministry of finance because he thinks that over the past few years we have survived under sanctions...We have had some means for surviving under those difficult times, so he believes that if the implementation of this agreement does not mean that by the following day there will be an end or lifting of sanctions - we should then continue with the present administration."

Or, to put it simply - We wrecked the country once, we can wreck it twice.

In August, as an example of Zanu-PD's fiscal talents, the Reserve Bank knocked ten zeros off the face value of the Zimbabwe dollar. But it continues to print money by the bale, and today one US dollar already fetches Z$180. That's the official figure. On the street it's more like Z$8,000.

And, as Mugabe guides us all closer to the brink of total breakdown, 80 per cent of our population survives on less than two and a half American dollars a day, and the World Food Programme has launched an appeal to feed five million of us who will otherwise starve.

Thabo Mbeki is back in town. Does he believe that Zanu-PF are competent to handle what's left of our economy?

Comments

[Fish Eagle]

Gumbo imagines everyone is as illiterate in Fiscal experience and economics as ZPF is (Or Worse). This from a man who represents a regime who has driven a country into bankruptcy.

You have to chuckle or you would weep.!!!!

[Keenan Topp]

Shockingly, the inflation rate keeps climbing. The CATO institute is now estimating it to be in the TRILLIONS (5.77 trillion percent per year). This is a number that is completely beyond all sanity. (In perspective: 182,965.5% per second)

[RMacleod]

In the light of all the recent claptrap and nonsense that has occurred in Zimbabwe, is a report of continuing control of finance by Zanu PF of any newsworthy value?, probably not.

Like medievel juviniles fearful of punishment for their wrongdoings, Mugabe and his cronies continue on their way to hell.

[Carlmadzi]

Zanu-PF is definately at war with the people of Zimbabwe.It has battered them both economicaly and physically from left,right and centre and destroyed everything good that existed.Zanu-PF has failed to manage the economy and the country's Finances for 28 years,taking Finance again,tells us that the situation in Zimbabwe will not change,unless anything called Zanu-PF leaves power to MDC.

[macon]

Hey! if I were as crooked as those guys, I'd demand to keep control of Finance, also. They draining Zim dry. I mean, you can book it they aren't filling those Swiss bank accounts by hawking phone cards on the street, selling veggies in the market, or even carving those little wooden bowls. It's like the fox offering to guard the hen-house for free. What they don't understand about Finance and Economics fills almost any text book available. It's sad enough to make a college professor cry...

[macon]

ok... either crooks, or delusional and completely inept, content to sit in their Harare offices, spouting their own propaganda until they believe it themselves... hook, line, and sinker. Never to venture through the country to see what's happening, and consider the why's and wherefore's of what they experience there... only to conjure excuses to cover for the greed in high places.

The product of their betrayal is they're turning the country into a nation of refugees for those who can and will work, or beggars for those who can't or won't leave.

The only one's who accept that a country's economy is reliant upon GNP and import/export balance, and that a government has a responsibility to encourage and protect production in order to provide products and sources of income for the population, are afraid to raise a voice of concern and reason out of fear of physical violence.

Is that insanity, or what?

[David]

It was obvious all along that the talks were just a timewasting tactic.
Only military intervention will save the people of Zimbabwe. Any western and many African powers could take the country in 1-2 days and stop all this madness.
I fear that civil war will break out any day now.
God help the people, because nobody else seems willing.

[Andrew]

Just goes to show, these guys are so far out of touch that they genuinely believe that all of Zimbabwe's financial woes are the reasults of sanctions (which actually only target the ZANU PF politburo), they just can't see that printing wads of cash is what is ruining things, therefore even a high school grad would do a better job. Mugabe and Zanu PF managed to run the economy without meltdown for 18 years, so they do have some experience of fiscal responsibility, bvut when you've bankrupted the country by collapsing the tobacco and farming export industry and trying to make amends printing endless money of course there will never be a solution.

[RMacleod]

The circus antics of these Mugabe and Mbeki clowns must be the laughing stock of the whole world.