THE chairperson of the CEO Africa Roundtable, Oswell Binha has described Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s much-taunted Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) “a story of missed targets”.
The TSP outlines policies, strategies and projects that guide Zimbabwe’s social and economic development interventions from 2018 to December 2020, simultaneously targeting immediate quick-wins and laying a robust base for economic growth for the period 2021-2030.
However, Binha said the TSP only witnessed a surfeit of statutory instruments (SIs).
“The TSP is the story of missed targets and incoherent implementation, whose outcome led to deeper debates on whether country is capable of planning and implementing economic blueprints, with the intensity they deserve,” he said Friday during the CEO Africa Roundtable breakfast meeting.
“We witnessed statutory instruments galore during the life of the TSP, the development economists agree, is an indication of disorder on the part of economic planners.”
Binha said there was need for the government to move away from “chronograph” and being “arrogant”.
“Let’s move away from the chronograph at high speed. While history is fundamental in instructing who we are, we can never drive forward looking in the rear view mirror, denials and arrogance on the part of economic planners, tends to wrong wire us away from cardinal rules, collectivism, hard and honest work.
“On the Monetary Policy front, I personally believe we must stop requirements as a policy option for a change. Obsession with taking away export proceeds from economic players using these instruments dampens the spirit of not only direct investments, but incremental exports that drives fundamentally manufactured export initiatives the country badly needs.
Binha added: “Let’s cut our cloth according to our size, difficult it maybe, let’s develop a national culture of paying back what we owe. This is the legacy issue.”
The CEO Africa Roundtable chairperson said Zimbabwe should adopt a clear Marshall Plan to extinguish the country’s total national liabilities as a confidence boosting measure.
“(A) $20 billion national debt is chicken change if we strike a balance between productivity, exports and a robust repayment plan. Cleaning up the RBZ balance sheet is strategically significant. The country must be able not only service its existing debt, but develop adequate capacity to contract current debt,” he added. – Newzim
