Indiscipline rife in Zim forex market

HARARE – There is worrying level of indiscipline by business in the domestic market, leaving authorities with little option but to intervene to forestall costly market failures if the flagrant disregard of rules continues.

Authorities have already started working on legal provisions to counter the potential risks that may arise out of market indiscipline relating to use or abuse of the auction.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya and Secretary for Finance and

Economic Development George Guvamatanga, said this during a 2021 monetary policy review webinar.

Dr Mangudya said given that there now is discipline in the execution of monetary and fiscal policies, what was lacking to sustain and improve prevailing stability and ensure growth was market discipline.

The indiscipline mostly involves abuse and misuse of forex obtained from the auction market, which has helped bring about exchange rate and inflation stability since its inception in June

last year.

“Market discipline is about attitude, is about self-discipline. This attitude, self-discipline is very critical to ensure that we overcome our challenges as a country.

“Under market discipline, we are talking about compliance, we are talking about pricing discipline; including the administrative pricing discipline,” Mangudya said.

“I think we have done very well on monetary discipline and fiscal discipline, but we have not done very well on market discipline, which is compliance, attitude and self-discipline; these are soft skills.

“Why is it difficult to comply

with an exchange rate of between $83 and $89 (Zimbabwe dollars) to (US$1), which is a big band?

“Our auction bid band is between $82 and $89-$90, but you find that some people have propensity to always do above that,” the central bank governor said. Secretary for Finance, Guvamatanga, said there had been significant improvement in the conduct of the fiscal policy since the coming to power of the new administration. He said when the Government took over, the old dispensation had accessed just over US$3 billion through the RBZ window, which contributed to inflation build up. – THE HERALD, Zimbabwe.

THErecent revelation that the UPND led alliance has collapsed is not shocking as it was clear from the outset.

We have always denounced the chronic greediness by the UPND who did not value the importance of other partners. We had observed a number of irreconcilable differences that had engulfed the political players that had come together to wage rivalry against President E d g a r Chagwa Lungu. Just like the bible clearly put it; touch not the anointed one, President Edgar Chagwa Lungu’s is the anointed one. Without malice or spite, we have been consistent in our commentaries that any alliance that

United Party for National Development (UPND) especially with long time opposition leader Hakahinde Hichilema at its helm is helm is destined for doom.  The reason for the collapse of the alliance we predicated is simple; Hakahinde Hichilema only believe that he has the monopoly of the alternatives and the views of other partners did not matter.

We know how desperate HH was to have any user friendly non tribesman as a catalyst to dilute his tribal tag so long total allegiance was pledged to him.  With this apparent ego, the alliance between UPND and anyone is not based on mutual respect. The alliance partners were engulfed in deep rooted irreconcilable differences which made them tilt towards different directions.

We appreciate National Democratic President Chishimba Kambwili for having exercised excessive restraint even if it was apparently clear that his lead alliance partner HH was aimed at undermining other opposition partners. We also predicted that with the typical dictatorial tendencies by HH, it was possible that his priority could be disbanding the opposition political parties which would have helped him ascending to power and eliminate a possible reintroduction of one party participatory democracy.

It is sad, our unsolicited counsel was misconstrued as dislike for the leader who is about to attempt the sixth Presidential bid. We would like to repeat our observation, a fractured and failed UPND led alliance is not ready to govern. The association has always had the ideological differences which remained unresolved for 2 years.

We believe the UPND former alliance partners have the eye witness perspective on the true character of HH and Zambians should believe them. Mr Hichilema is inadvisable and we have always seen how he disregarded the expert advice from Zambia Airforce (ZAF) with regard to his intention to sell the Presidential jet. Zambians should be forewarned on the dangers of trusting such ill-advised tyrants masquerading as the messiahs and liberating figures for the Zambian people.

MARVIN MBERI, Lusaka