MDC deputy chairperson and Harare East legislator, Tendai Biti has described the ruling party Zanu PF as “clueless and incompetent” amid economic meltdown which has seen the government moving to institute the two percent electronic transactional tax among other new financial reforms aimed at breathing life to the ailing economy.
Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube and central bank boss, Dr John Mangudya early this month introduced a cocktail of financial reforms which the duo described as necessary to jump start the economy with President Emmerson Mnangagwa describing the measures as a necessary pain that Zimbabwe should adopt to bail itself out of the economic quagmire.
Analysts and economists who also double as politicians have challenged the reforms singling out the two percent tax on every electronic dollar transaction saying it is pegged high and has no legal ground.
Posting on his micro blog twitter, Biti said the country’s crisis is Zanu PF which he said is incompetent and clueless on how to resuscitate the economy.
“They now claim the black market is a security threat. On the contrary, the parallel exchange rate is just a symptom of the suffocating national melt down. The real cause of that crisis is Zanu, its incompetence, mismanagement, cluelessness and rigging. Zanu is the threat,” he posted.
The parallel market dropped dramatically last week leaving the illegal money changers at loss following the unexpected climb down of the USD which had risen to almost 500 percent selling at 1:6 with the bond note.
Biti warned in 2016 after the government moved to introduce the surrogate currency aimed at addressing cash shortages that have since worsened since then. He lamented the return of 2008 in a decade’s time describing the economic collapse as unbelievable.
“In 2007-2008 Zimbabwe witnessed the world’s worst post war economic meltdown. Its hard to believe that ten years later we are in the grippingthroes of a similar crisis. Are we cursed?”
The Former Finance Minister has been in arms with the government on various issues and has since dismissed minister Ncube’s two percent tax on electronic dollar transaction saying it lacks the legal ground, a battle that has seen other legal minds like renowned constitutional lawyer advocate Fadzayi Mahere and former education minister David Coltart joining forces.
Biti is currently representing Harare Residents Association director Mfundo Mlilo, who filed an application at the Harare High Court, seeking to repeal Ncube’s two percent tax gazetted in the SI 205 of 2018 arguing that it is not anchored on parliament approval.
