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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Cash crisis needs action, not child’s play!

Opinion & Analysis
ON Wednesday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged during commemorations of the country’s 38th Independence Day anniversary to urgently address the cash crisis, among several other commitments.

ON Wednesday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged during commemorations of the country’s 38th Independence Day anniversary to urgently address the cash crisis, among several other commitments.

We believe the President must be reminded that this is not the first time that he was making such a commitment, having been one of the things he touched on soon after his inauguration on November 24 last year.

After failing to deal with the cash crisis in his first 100 days, he then recanted and pledged to join the multitudes of Zimbabweans in the unending bank queues, something which showed that Mnangagwa’s regime had no clue as to how they could handle the crisis.

Hence, the cash crisis still persists with no end in sight. It is not even showing signs of relenting whatsoever. That’s bad enough for the new Zanu PF leader who is set to battle it out with the opposition in the country’s first election without both former President Robert Mugabe and the late MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Promises have never been good enough — and they can always be broken or remain unfulfilled. Zimbabweans need a long-term solution to the economic crisis, not these unending promises without timelines.

The country has been battling a cash crisis that has seen a lot of man-hours and productive time being lost as people queued in banks to access their hard earned money. While Zimbabweans understand that the cash crisis was inherited from his predecessor Mugabe’s regime, it cannot be an excuse because there is need for clear and tangible demonstration that we are in a “new era”, as they would have the nation believe.

A lot of the times citizens are still hearing the same promises that Mugabe used to give, which never translate into reality as ordinary people continue to pay a huge price for the “cashlessness” afflicting the country.

Rather than give banal promises on intentions — which is always the nature of speechifying — it would have been better for Mnangagwa to give tangible examples and breakdowns of what exactly has government done to resolve the crisis that continues to haunt the ordinary citizens. It goes without saying that the cash crisis has probably been one of the great hardships faced by Zimbabweans and “working tirelessly to solve” it doesn’t really mean anything without providing the actual solution.

If this matter is not resolved urgently, what makes the Zanu PF government sure that the electorate will give them another lease of life when they have clearly demonstrated their cluelessness!

Time is fast running out and the time to act is now. Mnangagwa must not forget that he and his colleagues are living on borrowed time, and they have been given ample time to demonstrate that, indeed, we are in a “new era.”

Yet so far, there is nothing much to show for their takeover of power. Zimbabweans demand action, not child’s play.