By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

A THOROUGH review of economic journalism in Zimbabwe is quite depressing.
In general, Madzimbahwe have tended to ignore or postpone indefinitely the most critical economic issues facing them and requiring urgent debate and decision while rushing headlong into actions that run the risk of worsening the situation and precipitating many unforeseen and unintended consequences.
A few examples are in order here: On June 9 2015 The Chronicle published a shocking story by Musah Gwaunza entitled ‘There is no liquidity crunch in Zimbabwe’ and opened the story as follows: “Yes there is no liquidity crunch but misplaced priorities, rather misplaced purchases.”
What both the reporter and the editor missed was the fundamental connection between the liquidity crisis precipitated by reliance on the over-valued US dollar as a substitute for national currency on one hand and the apparently bizarre retail and merchandising behaviour of individual citizens trying to survive the destruction of productive economic activity caused by the power of the US dollar in the context of a depreciating rand being exploited next door to produce cheap goods for export to Zimbabwe on the other hand.
Instead of writing and publishing an economic story which cried ‘Fire!’, The Chronicle published a decoy which sent the country to sleep.
There is no liquidity crunch in Zimbabwe?
After the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) awoke from its slumber upon the arrival of currency crunch queues in Harare in late 2016, The Chronicle again published another story (top of cover page) called ‘Forty-Five (45) Days to Bond notes’.
This was on September 16.
By that time, land preparations and input purchases for the 2016-2017 agricultural season should be complete.
The idea was that whoever was facing problems to be solved through the issuance of Bond notes did not have long to wait.
There were just 45 days left before the solution arrived.
But in nations where people think in terms of real business and commerce, even 45 hours would be considered inordinately too long to wait to solve a grinding problem which arose in 2009.
It was obvious from the framing of the story that neither the reporter nor the editor were thinking in terms of the real productive economy, business and commerce for the 14 million Madzimbahwe.
The real story is that Bond notes are partly based on a desire to tackle problems which were imminent and clear as far back as 2009.
But The Chronicle reporter and editor, seven years late, thought that another 45 days to wait (from mid-September 2016) was no big deal.
Zimbabwe could wait.
The economy could wait.
Production could wait!
This mentality raises the question whether Zimbabwe’s economic and business journalists understand anything about capitalism as the context within which Zimbabwe is trying to operate.
What sort of business or commerce within capitalism would just wait around 45 days for a solution which has not yet been tested?
Under normal circumstances, 45-day targets, 90-day targets and 100-day targets are set for the purpose of clocking profound achievements and not for urging business and commerce to wait!
In The Chronicle case, the Bond notes were to become available almost 120 days since their announcement!
To move to another example, in 2014, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) made a hasty decision which has proven to be catastrophic.
It decided to launch a punitive tax-collection and tax-recovery blitz throughout the economy and especially the state enterprises sector.
This was based on the assumption that the economy and the entities targeted had been running optimally from 2009 to 2014, but had not been paying optimal taxes. Estimates of how much was owed ran into billions of US dollars and it was claimed that the so-called informal sector was also hoarding US$4 billion to US$8 billion which could also be taxed.
The contradiction was that the entire economy had not run optimally ever since the imposition of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in 1990. Illegal sanctions had worsened the situation since 2001-2002.
From 2008 to date, most business entities in both the public and private sector have been running on an emergency basis.
ZIMRA should have studied and understood the exact nature of that emergency before launching its aggressive tax-recovery blitz which was presumed on optimal conditions prevailing in the economy.
The result for the Nation is clear for everyone to see.
ZIMRA faces a dire scenario of ever-diminishing tax revenue returns.
The companies or parastatals whose accounts were garnished on allegations of owing theoretical tax arrears simply went under and the next year there was nothing to tax or garnish in many cases.
The last example for our purpose here is the sanctions story.
On April 22 2007, my ‘African Focus’ column for The Sunday Mail was entitled ‘What it means to unite against sanctions’ and it expressed shock at the lack of national institutional research and interest in the actual economic effects of sanctions, including lack of research by university History, Economics, Business Studies and Sociology departments.
On September 9 2007 my ‘National Focus’ column for The People’s Voice was entitled, ‘The need to document features of the current economic war’, with emphasis on sanctions.
Then in 2008, former RBZ Governor Dr Gideon Gono published an account of his experience of Anglo-Saxon sanctions on Zimbabwe entitled ‘Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy: Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges.
The universities ignored the study.
There were efforts to dismiss the publication on personal grounds, as Dr Gono’s effort to justify his role as Governor of the RBZ.
But there were many grounds for reviewing and debating the book as a seminal contribution toward an understanding of Zimbabwe’s actual financial history.
On November 15 2009 my ‘African Focus’ column for The Sunday Mail was entitled ‘Illegal sanctions remain biggest threat to land reform’.
I cited Dr Gono’s book and regretted that both public and private institutions ignored the book with many members of Zimbabwe’s Parliament actually denying the existence, let alone effects of sanctions upon the people.
Then on February 27 2011 my ‘African Focus’ column for The Sunday Mail was called ‘Missing Audit: The impact of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe and SADC’.
The column carried the following paragraph:
The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education in mid-February 2011 launched an important project entitled ‘Research and Intellectual Expo 2011: Unpacking Knowledge Excellence!’
Finally, on September 15 2016, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development announced a ‘Call for Proposals’ which opened as follows: “Through the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZIMDEF), the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development is launching this call for proposals for grant funding available competitively to a consortium of local and international researchers for the purpose of carrying out an in-depth scientific study of the economic impact of Western-imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe on ordinary people in particular and the country and SADC in general.”
This call for proposals shows a belated appreciation of the profound implications of the sanctions which should be welcomed, even though it is now more than 10 years late.
This history is shocking.
In most countries in the world, even the mere mention of intentions to impose sanctions on people triggers a flurry of institutional responses, including massive research and media coverage.
What went wrong in Zimbabwe?