CHAIRPERSON of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance, David Chapfika, has blasted government for stocking piles of economic blueprints that are never implemented.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Making a presentation during a Sapes Trust discussion recently on economic reform, Chapfika told guests that other countries were borrowing from Zimbabwe’s economic blueprints and successfully turning around their economies, while the country dithered even in the face of serious financial difficulties.
“Zimbabwe is not starved of good economic policies, and the President’s Office has piles of blueprints which other countries are borrowing from and implementing, creating wonders in their economies, while we are not,” he said.
“Our major challenge is implementation, and even if we have the highest literacy rates, there is so much policy inconsistencies and what has happened to Zimbabwe is a downward slide of the economy for decades.”
Chapfika said ministers have been speaking in riddles pertaining to the Indigenisation Act, causing a lot of confusion.
“Now there is the liquidity crunch and some of the causes of this are issues that the Indigenisation Act tried to address a long time ago. Investors moved into South Korea because their investment laws were clear and specific, but in our country, what is happening is the opposite,” he said.
The Finance Portfolio Committee chairperson said there was also too much capital flight such that even if the South African rand were to be introduced as the main currency, it would still be externalised by unscrupulous dealers.
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Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe founder Godfrey Kanyenze said as government failed to implement economic blueprints, 15 State enterprises and parastatals were now technically insolvent.
He said countries like Rwanda, that have less educated people than Zimbabwe, were now on the path of recovery due to coherent policies in government.
“There is capture of State institutions to the extent that even the President talked about $15 billion diamond money missing. Let us just get $1bn from the missing $15bn and we will not be talking of the liquidity crunch,” Kanyenze said.
“It is not a liquidity crisis. It is a stewardship crisis. Rwanda has tea, coffee and some gorillas, but we have vast resources that which we are failing to use to our advantage. The Auditor-General always lays bare issues on lack of accountability, but nothing happens.”
