{UAH} Mugabe unveils "sanction-busting" economic blueprint: Real tales from the crypt

Folks;

 

The fossil down south is still breathing. Even when confronted with a litany of evidence that his own policies - not sanctions - are the reasons for Zimbabwe's economic stagnation, Mugabe still blames the West.

 

Pojim

 

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's cabinet has approved a new economic blueprint to spearhead a turnaround of the economy for the next five years.

The policy document titled Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) was crafted from President Mugabe's Zanu PF manifesto for the July 31 elections when the party registered a landslide victory.

Zanu PF blames the country's economic woes on sanctions imposed on the veteran ruler and his inner circle.  Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said the new strategy would revolve around busting the sanctions.

"All the source documents recognise the continued existence of the illegal sanctions, subversive activities and interference in the country's internal affairs by some hostile countries," he told state media.

"This therefore underlines the need to come up with sanctions busting strategies and to put emphasis on the reliance on local funding for the plan, hence ZimAsset's focus on the full exploitation of and value addition to the country's abundant resources.

"I humbly requested cabinet to approve the economic blueprint to enable government to immediately implement the plan to fulfil the people's expectations in the aftermath of the landslide victory during the July 31 harmonised elections."

The blueprint envisages that Zimbabwe's economy will grow by an average of 7.3 per cent before reaching 9.9 per cent in 2018.

President Mugabe's critics say the economic collapse was prompted by the deployment of Zimbabwean troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 to fight in a civil war.

They argue the collapse was quickened by an unplanned decision to pay former fighters of the country's liberation struggle unbudgeted pensions around the same time.

An unplanned land reform programme in 2000 that saw the government taking over about 4,000 commercial farmers for redistribution to landless blacks also seriously hurt the agriculture-based economy.

A long running political crisis also negatively impacted on Zimbabwe's economy but there is now hope that after the July 31 elections ushered in a one party government there would be policy consistency.