Wakanda News Details

Pfumvudza, bond notes: ED’s saviour

THE gigantic lake Tugwi-Mukosi is spilling. This is a rare phenomenon for a water body so big to spill less than four years after commissioning. Paidamoyo Muzulu It holds a promise that is too big to hide or ignore, a promise of water security for agriculture for the next three years even if there are three consecutive droughts. This is a lake that the Rhodesian colonial government had planned, but could not deliver because of the liberation struggle waged by the majority black citizens. However, the project held a big promise — a promise of revolutionarising agriculture in Masvingo and the lowveld. The lake can irrigate a massive 100 000 hectares of land. Sugar plantations in the region — Triangle, Hippo Valley and Mkwasine — can all expand their production. The dead capital of Naunetsi Ranch can now be rescued and the land start producing. New fisheries and tourist resorts can also be set up and change the face of economic opportunity in the region. This is a bit futuristic and probably bigger than the capabilities of the present administration. However, the reality is most fields are lush green across the country and the prospect of the biggest harvest in the last two decades beckons. A successful agricultural season may just be the tonic needed to restart the economic revolution Zimbabwe sorely needs. Agriculture has backward and forward linkages in the economy. If done well, it creates massive employment opportunities, supports the agro-chemicals industries, but more importantly, changes the skylines of Harare, Bulawayo and other urban centres’ industrial sites. The boilers in the industrial areas will start belching smoke into the cloudless sky, men and women working in shifts to produce merchandise and revival of the glorious manufacturing sector, a sector that gave Zimbabwe a place of pride on the world map for producing luxurious cotton clothes, a home to Nestle and Colgate Palmolive products, world renowned Mazoe orange juice, among other products. The revival of Zimbabwe’s economy lies in a controversial policy position —the much-maligned reintroduction of a local currency — Zimbabwean dollar — after a decade long dalliance with the United States greenback. Industrialists and merchandisers wont to profiteering and general populace enjoying the rare privilege of having an international currency in their back pockets and purses vehemently resisted the move. Some big players engaged in direct sabotage of the new currency, weakening it on the parallel market with the intention to bury it within a year of reintroduction. A combination of the Treasury and central bank tenacity is beginning to yield results. Treasury proclaimed a mono-currency policy position, but has somehow weakened it after pressure from certain quarters to allow dual pricing of goods in Zimbabwe dollars and the greenback. The monetary authorities saved the currency collapse by introducing the weekly currency auction by the central bank. For the past six months, the bond note has held steady against the greenback hovering between 80 and 83 to

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