What’s this about bond notes

At first they said that introducing the proposed notes would take at least two months. That may be a reasonable time to allow for printing and distribution. Now they talk of August, so we know we have a breathing space – or do we?

I think it is obvious that two things are happening when “they” fix a date. One is that the people who favour the scheme are trying to lull us into a false sense of security; they think we won’t do anything in a hurry because they have told us we have three months more before the bond notes appear and then they will spring them on us overnight, maybe when the June payday queues are longest.

But the second thing that is happening is that professional economists, responsible people who know what happened in the last years of the Zimdollar and why it happened, these people oppose the whole plan. You heard that the first Governor of the Reserve Bank after independence, Kombo Moyana, has criticised the whole idea of “bond notes” and been penalised for speaking out. Any honest and moderately competent person can see that it is a road to disaster. Those who oppose this crazy scheme may not know how exactly to stop it, but they will do what they can do delay implementation in the hope that somebody will find a way of preventing the worst from happening.

Of course when the zealots who are determined to push the scheme through realise that opposition is growing, they get more desperate. They way they treated Moyana is clearly meant to be a warning to others. The trouble, from their point of view, is that they have already, over the past eighteen years, used every method they know of inspiring fear and we’ve grown used to them. We are better able to see now that their carrying out their plans will cause more pain and suffering than anything they will do if we refuse to cooperate. Not that they can’t still inflict pain, but we are more likely to see that pain as like the pain of having a tooth taken out; yes, it is painful, but it is not as bad as living with a permanent toothache.

Whether we resist or not, this plan cannot work. We’re heading for a crash. We’ll get through it quicker if we refuse to accept any ZANU solution, because any ZANU solution will only benefit a very small group who end up holding all the real money, though in this case they may not even achieve this. Still, we can’t afford to let them play their tricks any longer. The time has come to refuse co-operation with any of their schemes.