THE government is failing to properly explain its on-going austerity measures, resulting in most people looking at the current establishment as a failure, Defence and War Veterans deputy minister Victor Matemadanda has said.
By Rex Mphisa
Matemadanda, who is the ruling Zanu PF party commissar, said to achieve economic stability, the new dispensation led by President Emerson Mnangagwa, embarked on financial discipline and other measures to boost government coffers.
This, he said, was bound to cause suffering, but had long-term positive effects.
“The last dispensation did not have financial discipline that resulted in printing of unsupported bond notes. President Mnangagwa embarked on austerity measures to re-rail the economy, but these have not been properly communicated to the people,” he said.
Matemadanda said Mnangagwa was clear that the recovery path would be an uphill task.
“These (austerity measures) have to be packaged well such that everyone knows where we are going and what we are going through,” he said.
Matemadanda was addressing war veterans, war collaborators and widows of liberation war heroes in Beitbridge on Thursday.
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“(The late former President Robert) Mugabe’s dispensation bled the economy. Zimbabwe is like a person being treated of extreme blood loss whose recovery is painful,” he said.
Zimbabwe has of late been witnessing a wave of fuel price hikes and other commodities which has left people believing Mugabe was better that his successor who assumed power following a coup. Matemadanda said war veterans had a role to explain the austerity measures to people in their areas.
He urged war veterans to resist regional politics and elect party officials on merit rather than connections.
“We are holding our district co-ordination committee elections countrywide and you must elect people according to performance, not who they know,” he said.
Matemadanda said his visit to Beitbridge brought him face-to-face with the drought and he would advise the President on the urgent need to bring food relief for both humans and livestock in the district.
More than 1 000 cattle have succumbed to effects of the drought in Beitbridge.
