The Government and Politicians Need to Spend Money Locally

Desperate for revenue, and desperate to revive the local economy, the Zimbabwe government has taken the ridiculous step of banning importation of basic items by travellers. They hope this will stimulate local buying.

It is not going to work. The simple reason being that the foreign buying that takes huge sums of money out of the economy, is not done by travellers on buses and cars.

Rather it is very high worth individuals and politicians who make the purchases and spending decisions that take huge sums of money out the country. The bottom line is these high worth individuals, including all levels of political leadership, are not economically patriotic. I would go as far as calling them economic traitors (vatengesi).

They are the ones who take their considerable spending power out of the country, starving the local economy of cash.

For example, recently five ZIMRA managers are said to have imported luxury cars worth US$120'000 each. On top of taking spending power out of the country they also smuggled the cars into the country denying government sorely needed revenue.

This week ZIMRA tried to 'stimulate' the local economy by banning wheel barrows. A wheelbarrow costs R350, or about $20 dollars. Even if ZIMRA were to stop the importation of six thousand wheelbarrows, that is about ten magonyet of wheelbarrows, the value will not match one of the single luxury cars imported by the managers.

Mind you we are talking about just five junior ZIMRA managers. What about senior management. What about other parastatals, government departments and the management of those.

Recently the ZBC was reported to have flouted tender regulations to buy imported cars worth 1.7million dollars. What difference does importing a wheelbarrow costing 20 dollars make when such a large amount has already been taken out of the country?

Even those high worth individuals who regularly globe-trot are doing considerable damage to the Zimbabweans economy. If you sleep in a hotel, it means that hotel can employ people like cleaners. If it were a Zimbabwean hotel, that would mean jobs for Zimbabweans. If it's a hotel in Singapore, it means jobs for Singaporeans.

I hope, therefore, people will understand my logic when I say banning individual travellers from importing items for personal use is meaningless. It is a useless measure in terms of reviving the local economy. As long as politicians and rich individuals who control large sums of money are not patriotic. As long as they continue to spend millions on luxury vehicles, other junkets and foreign holidays, they will continue to draw huge sums out of the economy.

Banning small traveller imports is like trying to get a fallen man to get up by taking a small stone out of their hand while leaving a huge boulder resting on their back.

Economy yeZimbabwe yakagarwa matunduru ne mashefu. Haisimuki.