Carte Blanche with Perry

The economic headwinds being carried over from last year are likely to persist in 2020, curtailing overall economic growth. The economic challenges prevailing in the country will likely be worsened climatic shocks chief among them, the droughts that have been experienced in the country which have affected power generation, and food security. Given the foregoing, major downside risks in the economy remain, and 2020 will likely be a very challenging year. GDP Trends In official government forecasts, the Ministry of Finance projected GDP growth of 3% for 2019, which was above the 3.5% growth rate originally estimated by the World Bank. However, the World Bank now forecasts that Zimbabwe`s economy shrunk by as much as 7.5% in 2019, and the Bank is forecasting GDP growth of 2.7% in 2020. Zimbabwe's projected growth for this year lags behind the sub-Saharan Africa growth forecast of 2.9%, which is based on the assumption that investor confidence improves in some large...

Robert Mugabe International Airport - Image Credit (CAAZ) Air Zimbabwe recently took delivery of a pre-owned Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, and as the goings on at Air Zimbabwe so often do, this event sparked mixed reactions, especially considering the manner in which the flights were acquired. At the heart of such polarising debates inevitably, is the ‘small’ matter of the profitability of Air Zimbabwe, and its cost to public taxpayers. The ferocious debate raging in South Africa, with regard to continual government bailouts to the perennially loss making South African Airways, which is threatening both South Africa`s fiscal health and its international credit ratings, will obviously not have been lost on Zimbabweans, in this context. For years now, the unbridled descent of Air Zimbabwe has shown no immediate signs of abating. Strikes, allegations and counter allegations of mismanagement have hemmed-in the airline, choking the very life of Zimbabwe`s flag carrier in the s...

20 April 1980: Robert Mugabe at a religious service in the year when he became Zimbabwe’s first democratically elected leader. (Photograph by Jean-Claude Francolon/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) By Percy Zvomuya About a kilometre from State House – the official residence of the Zimbabwean president, where Robert Mugabe lived until the mid-2000s before moving to his hideous mansion popularly known as Blue Roof – is the National Archives. The squat edifice holds a rambling but fascinating interview that a government functionary conducted in the 1990s with Mbuya (Gogo)   Bona Mugabe, the mother of the former president who has died at the age of 95. It is one that might help us answer the often repeated question: What happened to Mugabe?  The interviewer had been sent to Mbuya Bona with the brief to help construct a hagiography of her son, Mugabe, who was born in 1924 at Kutama, a missionary station founded by the Catholic Church 80km west of Salisbury (now Harare). ...

Zimbabwean dollar bond notes © Getty Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe`s minister of finance wrote an interesting op-ed in the Financial Times  defending the re-introduction of a local currency. His argument is primarily premised on the theory that a weaker local currency will boost exports.  This is a brief response challenging that very argument that Zimbabwe needs its own currency which will be weaker than the USD, to boost its export competitiveness. The aim is to stimulate debate on the national policy front, by presenting an alternative view. A few thoughts on this: Mr Ncube`s theory is classic textbook economics, which essentially asserts the view that the benefits of a weaker local currency will outweigh the negatives of a weaker currency to a foreign currency. But is the case? A weak currency acts as a direct subsidy for exports while acting as a punitive tax on imports. But in Zimbabwe`s case, perhaps the first departure point is determining a suitab...

For much of 2019, Zimbabwe`s economy has oscillated between confusion and chaos, and as the second half of the year wears on, the headwinds show no immediate sign of relenting. In fact one might even argue that there is a distinct success about the failure of the current administration in delivering on its promises. This in spite of government`s own constant and consistent barrage of positive narratives attempting to placate the nation. And for the most part, the country has been in need of placating, reeling under the weight of the “big-bang” shock therapy being administered under government`s Transitional Stabilisation Program, adopted in October 2018. For the ardent observers, current events are reminiscent of the recurring themes during the hair-raising hyperinflation era. Winding fuel queues, electricity shortages, incessant talk of “unscrupulous and profiteering” retailers, and the threats to faceless “economic saboteurs”, all bring flashes of the tumultuous ‘lost decade”...

Leopold Takawira Street, Harare. Image Credit Flickr 2018 was a year of two contrasting halves for Zimbabwe. For the greater part of the year, Zimbabweans had the earnest expectation that the July 31 national elections would set the Southern African country on a sustained path of recovery. Events following the elections have, however, brought little respite, and have mostly served to highlight the true extent of the country`s troubles. Problems with fuel shortages, runaway inflation – the highest since the country dollarized in 2009 – and a dire foreign currency crisis threatening to cripple even the largest corporations in the country, have persisted. While government has set out an ambitious recovery plan through its Transitional Stabilisation Program launched last October, signs of progress have been scant. Instead, 2019 has thus far been characterised by industrial action by the country’s junior doctors, while public school teachers have also threatened to down tools, dem...