09/10/2018
*by Alistair James MacNeilage *
This past week has been crazy in Zim starting with the monetary policy and all the madness that has followed. A lot of people are directing their anger at the government. We seem to be dodging the real issues here which are: 1.We don't earn enough foreign currency as a nation. 2. We import too much. 3. We don't produce enough. 4.We don't support local products. How many of us can say we actually earn foreign currency? What do those of us who do get our hands on foreign currency do with it? Import cars, goods from South Africa, China, Dubai etc for resale or go buy bales of second hand clothes and in so doing we turned ourselves into a nation of vendors. We rather buy a packet of Lays chips over a packet of Willards chips we all grew up eating in the 80s and 90s. We feed our kids imported sweets, chocolates and cereals that we never had growing up when we have perfectly acceptable local alternatives available. We don't support local companies and industries but are the same people who complain that there are no jobs. How do you expect a local company to increase their production and employ more people if we won't buy their products? We rather support South African companies and give billions of dollars every year to South Africa. This isn't about politics or Zanu PF. Supporting a local private company is not supporting Zanu PF. It is about giving a job to a fellow Zimbabwean. At the end of the day it is all of us who suffer not the politicians (Zanu PF and MDC) who are living in mansions, driving around in flashy cars receiving their allowances from the state or foreign donors.... do you honestly think that any of them actually care about you? If you do you've been played ... That's just what politicians do. We complain that there is no forex but just look at all the car sales around town with imported cars that sit for months on end without being sold. How much forex is tied up in those cars? How much forex is tied up in needless imports of bales and other cheap goods which are bought for resale? Just as the govt or the system is responsible for this mess ... We are also responsible. We suffer in the luxury of our imported cars from all over the world watching satellite tv on our flat screen tv's eating luxury imported foods wearing designer - but mostly fake Chinese imitations and post on Facebook on the latest touchscreen phone we can get our hands on and are so blind that we can't even see the damage we are doing to ourselves. What future are we leaving for our children, what values are we teaching them? That it's ok to be a vendor, dealer or hustler? It's ok to go change money on the parallel market or be a middle man in a deal and cheat your fellow countrymen by hoarding, creating shortages and reselling and doing anything to make a quick buck because majority of us are too damn lazy or afraid of real productive work which takes time but will yield greater results. Until we change our mindsets nobody will be able to fix Zimbabwe. Not Chamisa or some donor from the West. Right now we have over 9 billion sitting in rtgs accounts that was created by the interest on loans we took from banks and transaction charges. Who in their right mind will just gift 9 billion us dollars to a population that is just gonna burn that money or use it to import stuff and basically be a vendor? Money does not grow on trees. WHERE must the forex come from if we just import and do nothing to produce? Our only real solution to this mess is for us to produce our own goods and to export so we can earn enough foreign currency. It is simple maths we receive $1billion from the diaspora and export $4billion but are importing $7-8 billion annually.... we do nothing to reduce our imports, nothing to increase exports But we all expect forex to miraculously appear. The govt has not taken our forex ... We blew it taking loans to buy altezzas, subarus and flat screen tv's. Zimbabweans are the biggest fools on the planet! - those in the diaspora included! Stop sending money home for your relatives and creating a dependency syndrome where most of them just blow your hard earned money on booze and luxury items... it is not helping ... it has made people lazy because they just go and change it for a higher rate and dont have to work. send money to fund productive businesses so people can earn for themselves or dont send it at all- that concept of teach a man to fish instead of giving him a fish. Hardworking people are making their own forex here growing horticultural produce in greenhouses that dont even require much space or other agricultural produce or mining. We are not the first country to have political problems ... just look at Kenya who have almost identical political problems to Zimbabwe but do not have the same economic problems
