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Showing posts from April, 2014

Civil Service Reform

Let me begin with this. I am not against civil service. There are many examples of excellence by civil servants working hard for the country. In many cases these civil servants work for little pay and are often not recognized for the work they do. All too often the guys excelling in very difficult circumstances are overlooked for political and/or personal reasons. However, lets be real, these guys are in the minority. At least over the last 8 years. I begin looking at civil service reform because of the size and effects on the economy. Depending on which source you believe Zimbabwe's GDP sits at between $7.3 billion to $14 billion. So if that is the case the amount of money consumed by government is anything from 30%-50% of GDP. Such a statistic is very worrying. Let me put it in a simpler understanding. If you make a dollar, government will consume between 30 to 50% of that. This does not encourage enterprise nor does it encourage investment. This is what government should

Zimbabwe Economic Reality

What is the value we create? That is  the issue to the new Zimbabwean economic reality. This question must be asked everyday, in every household and every sector of the economy. We cannot as a nation go forward without that. By adopting the multi-currency regime in Zimbabwe we effectively removed any ability to improve our competitiveness by manipulating exchange rates. This has been the trick that African economies have been using to essentially "protect" the economy. These policies have, in my opinion, kept our countries only competitive in the primary and extractive industries. This is why when we look at GDP growth in Africa, much of our economy as a continent is dependent on FDIs (Foriegn Direct Investment) and export of raw materials. I need to note that I am in no way against the tenets of FDI and export of Raw Materials, it must not be in the long term economic policy of a country to focus on that alone. Remember that today's FDI becomes tomorrow's divi
I am back. In recent days I have been wondering what the core of my identity is. To this end, I believe I am most creating. Not creating in the sense of the great writers such as Shakespeare or our very own Shimmer Chinodya, but in the sense of the entrepreneurial minds that driven capitalism since the early man found barter trade is a means of getting what you need and could not attain. So the focus going forward is to provide an "African" view of what participation in capitalism. I say "African" because there cannot be an African view since we constitute nearly 1 billion views feelings etc. Heck, we cannot constitute a "Zimbabwean" view. That is why this is my view. To the item at hand. I came from Zimbabwe the other day only to be saddened by what I see as the stalled Zimbabwean rebirth. Since 2008 and the height of the Zimbabwe Hyperinflation, I was naive enough to think by removing monetary authority from our government, who had clearly failed