By Gift Mugano
I will not attempt to summarise the manifesto but will share major highlights centred on governance and the economy. The challenges affecting Zimbabwe are both economic and political/governance.
On the political and governance front, the CCC promises to establish office of the opposition leader in Parliament who will be accorded official recognition and official invitations to all national programmes and events.
This is a welcome move as it will take away the toxicity of politics which has become a permanent feature in our country.
In addition, the CCC commits to guarantee human rights, constitutionalism, respect of property rights, tolerance and freedom of expression which are key in building impetus for development.
Furthermore, CCC promises to have Parliamentary Committees of Budgets, Public Accounts and Foreign Affairs chaired by opposition with a view to foster oversight, scrutiny and accountability.
This is sweet music in my ears. With this, we will be assured that the culture of acquiring debt by RBZ/MOF without the scrutiny of Parliament and appropriation of budget without the approval of Parliament will be history.
Moreover, the CCC seeks to build national consensus on all developmental matters through the establishment of the Consultative Transformation Council (CTC) made up of Government, business, civil society, academic and labour.
The CTC will actualize the social contract and stand as a supreme transformational institution in Zimbabwe where all national policies and legislations are scrutinised and debated.
This an important proposition as it will help in building consensus and shared vision on policies which ease policy implementation.
In line with this, the CCC promises zero tolerance on corruption. It is envisaging to build strong institutions with a view to stop corruption.
This is key as the country is losing US$1.8 billion annually due to illicit financial flows and an additional US$1 billion locally due to corruption. These funds should be easily directed towards production.
On the economic front, our number 1 challenge is DROUGHT OF PRODUCTION. The CCC promises to guarantee economic stability as a priori requirement for production by adopting dollarisation and scrapping ZWL and then build the condition for the introduction of ZWL at a later stage.
This is fundamentally correct because the dual currency on its on is a fatal error because you can’t give rational economic agents to the opportunity choose between 2 currencies and expect them to choose ZWL – it is like asking me to choose between chicken road runner and dried vegetables (musoni) during my time in CHIMANIMANI.
Other measures aimed at fostering stability include guaranteeing independence of RBZ, fiscal reforms and debt resolution.
In addition, the CCC promises to give title deeds to communal and resettled farmers so as to unlock capital which is key in raising agricultural production. This is a a game changer because at the moment our land is dead capital.
In addition, the promise to disband command agriculture and liberalise the agricultural sector is a sound policy proposition.
Since 2000, we are food insecure (but not tobacco insecure) because of command economics. In the tobacco sector, we are 4 in the world in terms of exports because the sector is liberalised.
To spice it, the CCC coined the modernisation agenda for the transformation and urbanisation of rural areas (MATURA) which is key in fostering rural development and a BIG business in agriculture since 8 provinces are rural.
Through various funding instruments which are largely centred on innovative finance, the CCC promises to revamp the country’s infrastructures which is priori requirement for production.
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