By Anna Chibamu
DESPITE Zimbabwe’s high unemployment rate and grinding poverty among ordinary citizens, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration claims it is creating jobs while economic development is evident countrywide.
His son, Deputy Finance Minister Kudakwashe Mnangagwa this week told parliamentarians that the country was on track in terms of employment creation, economic development and other various aspects of its 14 pillars.
Even though figures on the ministry’s table have shown a positive trajectory, according to the deputy minister, the majority of university and college graduates are jobless, most have become street vendors, whilst in hospitals, nurses and doctors are lamenting lack of equipment and medicines to save the lives of thousands of patients while some fail to access health care and treatment.
Reports indicate thousands of school-going age groups, both secondary and primary levels, dropped out last year alone due to financial constraints on their parents’ part.
Deputy Finance Minister David Mnangagwa
Mnangagwa was responding to Mashonaland East Proportional Representation legislator Diana Marikano during a Question-and-Answer session.
Marikano had questioned what fiscal policies or reforms were being implemented to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and reduce poverty in Zimbabwe.
Mnangagwa told Deputy Speaker Tsitsi Gezi that the government was following different parameters and matrices to ensure that it reaches an upper-middle-income society by 2030.
‘’Looking at our five-year national strategy, which is now going into the second five years, we are on track in terms of employment creation, economic development, and various other aspects of our 14 pillars,’’ Mnangagwa said.
Another legislator, Marondera Central MP Caston Matewu queried Mnangagwa’s response citing ZiG’s unacceptability in other economies and in the country as well, a huge trade deficit, and currency instability amongst other concerns.
“For us to reach an upper middle-class economy, our currency must be acceptable to us, not just to us but to those that we do trade with. Our trade deficit is so huge.
‘’We import so much than we export, and our currency, for me to go to any other country, I would need to load a US dollar into a Visa card. What are you doing to ensure that our currency is stable to a point that it is acceptable all over the world; unless we do that, we will not get to an upper-middle-class economy?’’ Matewu said.
The deputy minister said Matewu needed to be corrected on his assumptions.
‘’Zimbabwe as a country, when it comes to foreign currency earnings, does much better than countries with a GDP that is four times our size. What this means is that when it comes to foreign currency and trade, let us tell our story in the right manner.
‘’The Hon. member speaks about stability and speaks to it as if it is an event. In the last few months, the parallel exchange rates and the official rates have been thinning. There has not been a huge increase in the parallel market rates, which is the one that we usually look at to see what the market activity is saying,’’ Mnangagwa explained.
‘’Acceptability of the currency is something that when you go into the market, a lot of people complain that there is not enough ZiG within the market. So, you wonder where this lack of acceptability is coming from…?”
Matewu also argued that acceptability meant outside the country but across the world to countries which traded with Zimbabwe.
‘’It is not acceptable. I am not talking about here in Zimbabwe. I am talking about countries that we trade with,’ the MP told Gezi.
The deputy finance minister still maintained his stance.
“I am not sure where the Hon. member wants ZiG to work except for Zimbabwe. Our local currency is meant to be used within Zimbabwean borders.
‘’When I mention our export receipts and having enough US dollars, it means that as a country we should be able to use our local currency within Zimbabwe, and when we want to trade outside of Zimbabwe, we exchange for the currency in that country. I am not sure if the Hon. member wants to use ZiG in Russia, the US, and China, but the premise…’’
Mnangagwa highlighted that the reason ZiG was said to be ‘local currency’ is because it is for local transactions.
‘’If we have foreign traders who want to do business and transact in Zimbabwe, they can bring in their currency, exchange it for the ZiG, and trade locally.
“This is the common practice. I am not sure how and where the question arises from the hon. member in this particular context, but I would like to say that ZiG fully works in Zimbabwe and we should not expect it to be used in any other country. It is our local currency.’’
MP for Manicaland Miriam Matinenga asked the deputy minister to enlighten the House in terms of tangible issues that showed the country was moving towards a positive trajectory economically.
Mnangagwa told the House that the list was endless and he was supposed to go through all ministries’ initiatives to show the positive trajectory of the economy.
”As Treasury and Finance ministry, we come up with an economic development plan and strategy, which then filters through all the different ministries. The point is not to paint a perfect picture.
“It is to paint a story of a journey, and along this journey, we have different markers and trackers that we look at. These are the ones that inform us that indeed we are on the right track, under our strategy,’’ Mnangagwa stated.
However, another opposition legislator Zivai Mhetu, chipped in asking what marker shows the improvement of people’s welfare.
‘’Vision 2030 was launched in October 2018. We are now left with five years to get to where we aim to go. For upper-middle income, we are looking at salaries of USD 4,500 monthly. So, right now, where are we? Are there any people earning USD4,500 per month?’’
The deputy’s response was; ‘’We started in 2018, 2019, and 2020. We had TSP, the Transitional Stabilisation Plan, mainly focused on good expenditure. From 2021 to 2025, we are in National Development Strategy 1, which looks at Vision 2030.
‘’That has three programmes, TSP and NDS1, which is coming to an end, and National Development Strategy 2, which will start in 2026 to 2030. According to the vision of the President, we are focusing on getting there and we expect to get there and achieve it successfully.’’