Opposition MDC-T says it will be intensifying its calls for a national dialogue with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration amid worsening economic crisis that has seen foreign currency exchange rate volatilies pushing prices of basic commodities up.
Addressing journalists at the party headquarters in Harare Tuesday afternoon, party president Douglas Mwonzora said the MDC-T would use other means to make sure that the dialogue call is successful.
“We notice that there is a lot of suffering that our people are going through and inflation has gone up, the ability of our people to afford basic commodities has been compromised, faced with this, the role of the opposition is to put things right. We continue with our call that the answer to Zimbabwe’s social political and economic conundrum is inclusive, genuine and unconditional dialogue.
“We are therefore going to be upping our ante on the need for dialogue, these problems are beyond the capacity of one person, one party and so on. It has to be tackled by all Zimbabweans together and we therefore going to be increasing our call for dialogue and if the Government remains slow in its reaction to the call for dialogue we will have to use other means to make sure that Zimbabweans are heard and dialogue has been done,” said Mwonzora.
He added that whilst external factors have taken a toll on the country’s economy, internal factors such as worsening levels of corruption cannot be ignored.
“We are feeling the heat of the war in the Ukraine just like any other country in the world but that is not the only inflation driver in our country, one of the inflation drivers in our country is exchange control and this is a Zimbabwean phenomenon where there is corruption within the exchange rate control system people are taking money, they are speculating and its driving inflation and this something within the ability of the Zimbabwean government to deal with criminal who are exploiting the exchange control,” he said.
Despite pushing for dialogue with Mnangagwa, Zanu PF has insisted that the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) is the only avenue to interface with the ruling party.
