
With rising inflation, shortages of cash, high premiums,
low production and exports, and a snail’s pace movement in amending laws,
economic stakeholders have called for these issues to be urgently addressed.
Speaking to NewsDay yesterday, Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce chief executive officer Christopher Mugaga said the incoming President
must endeavour to depart from Zanu PF party position and dwell on economic
policies aimed at improving the country’s fortunes.
“To expect change because [former President Robert] Mugabe
has left overnight is expecting too much. We are not sure that whoever is
coming after Mugabe would depart from party position in terms of economic
policy,” he said.
“While there is a constituency of people who believe in
empowerment, there is also a constituency which doesn’t believe in it. It’s a
conundrum. The greatest fear is entitlement by a number of shareholders who
will believe they deserve rewarding and impunity. But this can weaken or slow
down the pace of economic growth.”
Mugaga said the country’s new leader should put a paradigm
shift in the way of doing things by appointing technocrats to Cabinet.
“So whoever is coming must make sure that he departs from
the party position, for instance, for long, Cabinet has been made up of Members
of Parliament. He should put technocrats and not only depend on the august House.
The incoming leader must be prepared to be criticised and expect that it can’t
be politics as usual. The person should deal with corruption, nepotism and
parastatal rot,” he said.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR) president Denford
Mutashu said going forward, there was need for political stability, especially
at the highest level of leadership.
“Great focus should be placed on reviving the economy,
industrialisation to create jobs and produce more goods locally, all this while
advancing an export agenda premised on normalised internal, regional and
international relations,” he said.
“There is need to focus on enhancing competitiveness and
ease of doing business. CZR will embrace and work with the new government to
ensure policy consistency and address critical issues like foreign currency
shortages. There is great need for inclusivity and promotion of peace and
development while eradicating regionalism, corruption and build social trust
and confidence.”
The ones who have felt the brunt of the economic decay in
the country are the consumers who have been struggling with low disposable
incomes.
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe executive director Rosemary
Siyachitema said with the new political dispensation, speed was needed in the
enactment of the consumer protection law.
“We are calling for the enactment of the consumer
protection law. I think this continues to be paramount because consumers have
gone for a long time without any protective legislation when we look at what
good practice is. Consumers need prices to stay stable, affordable, goods have
to be accessible, and prices need to be fair. We do not want to continue seeing
these unprecedented price increments in the supermarkets or retail shops,” she
said.
“We want money in our pockets to mean something. The United
States dollar is worth quite a bit, yet we have seen it being eroded over a
period of time. We still ask for the same things and they do not change so we
still just make the same demands. We need swipe machines to be accessible and
in all places so that people can be able to transact, bank charges to be much
fairer than what they are. We need quality and standards.”
She said the legislation would deal with a number of issues
plaguing consumers.
Former Zimbabwe Investment Authority chairman Nigel
Chanakira said Mugabe’s resignation should encourage a relook at the investment
impediments in the country such as property rights.
“Mugabe is what I would call a Pharaoh. He was a shrewd,
probably the shrewdest African politician in terms of his conduct. In other
words, they (foreign investors) feared him and did not know how to handle him.
So, we now look at investment, the whole issue that the war was fought for, the
vote, as well as land, which in itself is one of the key panacea for
investment, in a sense that deals with property rights,” he said.
“So, if you now infringe on the right of title, you are
kind of violating investment principles in protecting investment and that was
the whole anchor of why Zimbabwe became a pariah State for foreign direct
investment. It was accentuated further because people took away the right to
farm title or land ownership. So once that was taken away, people walked away
with nothing.”
“If you take away property rights, as was done with the
land issue without compensation in one form or the other, and you go on to
accentuate the position by amending mining rights, you would have touched on
two very key attractions which foreign investment seeks in Africa,” he said.
Mugabe’s leadership was marred by policy inconsistency,
violation of property rights as well as uncertainty, which all drove away
potential investors. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment