Naledi Pandor is right that it does not help that the politics of Zimbabwe are vindictive, rancorous and full of "if I can't have it, you can't have it too" attitude.

But I do not agree those politics are the reason for the tanking economy.

The reason for the tanking of the economy is corruption, cronyism, overregulation and extortionist mentality by government.

The government has been using regulation to close down economic space and create monopolies controlled by the cronies of politicians. For example, private transport operators have been forced to close or subcontract to ZUPCO (Zimbabwe United Passenger Company) are government owned entity so corrupt that it has only survived through a dripline of handouts, and now the forced redirection of private transport investment for its benefit.

Even the cornerstone of Zimbabwe's household economy, small to medium scale rural agriculture has not been spared. Farmers are forced to deliver produce to government owned entities such as GMB (Grain Marketing Board) who pay in fits and starts or not at all. Yet such entities "loan" the produce delivered to the companies of politicians and their cronies who then engineer ways to get their "loans" and "accounts" written off.

An example of the "writting off" of debt is when foreign currency debt owed to private players such as Miekles Hotel was "taken over" by government which then did not bother to pay despite Miekles hotel winning a court case.

The closing of economic space for small businesses means that the owners and their employees often go to look for ecomic space in neighbouring countries particularly South Africa.

For example before I came to South Africa I was running a transport company in Zimbabwe. I parked and sold the trucks after I was approached by RBZ officials demanding that I reptriate ALL foreign earnings that I had invoiced for. This is despite that transporter brokers deducted supplies such as diesel, tyres and driver allowances before paying the invoice. For example if a broker provided material worth R7000 and I invoices R10000 for the trip that meant that I would only get paid R3000 by the broker. But that government of Zimbabwe wanted all R10000 "repatriated" to Zimbabwe at the penalty of prison. I chose to leave the business than regularly haggle with and bribe RBZ officials.

In the same yard I parked my trucks in Zimbabwe there were people who started off selling diesel stolen by truck drivers around Harare. Soon very high ranking officials (an army colonel and senior intelligence official) started supplying diesel from government "allocations" to those young men. Truckloads of diesel taken straight from NOCZIM (National Oil Company of Zimbabwe) were offloaded into drums and sold on the black market at a time the country was facing severe fuel shortage. Needless to say in the space of a year the sigubhu pushers had more than 10 trucks.

As long as government services are provided at extortionist daylight robbery proportions economic space will remain closed for small and medium enterprises and small business owners and their potential employees will continue flocking to neighbouring countries particularly South Africa, for the economic space they are denied at home.

South Africa needs to tell Munangagwa to stop the corruption and cronyism. Sanctions are an irritation but not an economy killer. Chamisa is largely irrelevant.

If South Africa wants to stop the tide of economy refugees from Zimbabwe, the former needs to be very direct and frank that corruption and overregulation need to end. Particularly the forced surrender of foreign earning to government is a nuclear bomb to the economy. Stop that and Zimbabwe's economy will start to turn around.