(4 minutes)
· Zimbabwe’s Vice President, Kembo Mohadi, said that the colonial ruler should be blamed for the economic ills of the country since they did not teach native Zimbabweans to run the economy
· Earlier, the Zimbabwean dollar was pegged at 1:1 with the US dollar. Now the value against the dollar is eroded to 1% of its earlier value.
· The currency currently is pegged at 100:1 against the US dollar in the black (parallel) market.
Zimbabwe’s Vice President, Kembo Mohadi, said that the colonial ruler should be blamed for the economic ills of the country since they did not teach native Zimbabweans to run the economy. He said that the economic depression the country has gone through since independence from Britain in 1980 can largely be attributed to the colonizer, who
did not create enough expertise in the country to address the economic ills on a sound footing.
Mohadi, who is one of the country’s two vice presidents, added that the colonizers did not do much to impart knowledge to the locals. Zimbabwe was once known as the ‘bread basket of Africa’. However, it slipped into economic chaos in the early 2000s under former president Robert Mugabe’s administration. The s controversial land redistribution program, which led to seizure of white-owned farms, was the trigger of the present instability. It was compounded by political instability and hyperinflation.
Earlier, the Zimbabwean dollar was pegged at 1:1 with the US dollar. Now the value against the dollar is eroded to 1% of its earlier value. The currency currently is pegged at 100:1 against the US dollar in the black (parallel) market. Added to this is the food shortage and inadequate supply of several essential goods. According to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, conducted in February 2020, more than 4.3 million Zimbabweans living in rural areas are facing food insecurity, according to the latest.
