BY JAIROS SAUNYAMA
Zanu PF has pleaded with the electorate to give it more time to resolve the country’s economic mess, saying the 40 years the party has been in power was not long enough for an economic turnaround.
The call was made at the weekend by acting party spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa at a provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Mashonaland East.
“Development is not a day’s thing, it’s not a month’s thing, it’s not a year’s thing, but it is a journey to be travelled for many years so that we reach our destination. But for us to get there, like what professor (Finance minister Mthuli) Ncube said, we need to have targets and agree on a roadmap to be used,” Chinamasa said.
The southern African country is currently experiencing its worst economic meltdown in a decade characterised by hyperinflation and liquidity challenges which have spawned shortages of food and other essential imports. The new dispensation has also been choked by high-level corruption at a time ordinary citizens are living below the poverty datum line.
“I hear a lot of people mocking the government saying we are behind China and America in terms of development. Do you know that China came from 6 000 years of uninterrupted civilisation? In Europe, wars were fought, their development is not recent, it came after hundreds of years. And now someone says what we have done in 40 years cannot be compared with what was achieved in Europe, how do you want it to be done? You need to know that development is not instant. Our President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) is moving towards vision 2030,” he added.
The Zanu PF government has been accused of running down the economy, which was once a jewel of Africa, through weak policies and corruption, but the regime blames economic sanctions, the opposition and natural disasters for derailing its programmes.
