(Last Updated on August 16, 2022 by ZIMDAILY EDITOR)
HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa has for the first time admitted that there has been massive pilferage and corruption in government departments which is driving the black market and prices of goods and services.
Writing in his weekly Sunday Mail column, Mnangagwa said: “Many things have been going wrong in (public) sector, which must show the way and whose buying power accounts for 70% of the demand for goods and services in our economy. Much worse, it is the governing sector. With such a preponderant procurement role in the economy, and such high exemplary conduct, it goes without saying that what the public sector does or fails to do right, impacts on the whole economy whether for better or worse.
“By any count, what the public sector spends each month is quite huge; in fact, decisive to the direction the whole economy takes. As a demander of goods and services, the public sector discharges huge sums of money into the economy, which is why what it does matters to everyone. Ordinarily, the goods and services that government demands should stimulate and promote greater activity in the economy.
“Yet our latest investigations have shown that this is not always so. If anything, this huge demand for goods and services by the public sector has, in fact, been stoking the black market, leading to currency and price instability in the whole economy. The public sector has been largely guilty of sins of omission. We have not always been a prudent procurer, a weakness which has levied very costly consequences to the whole economy.”
Speaking at an economic conference last week, Finance ministry secretary George Guvamatanga also accused government ministries, departments and agencies of fuelling the black market rate.