Economic Justice for Women founding director Margret Mutsamvi says Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube is brilliant, intelligent, and educated but is not relevant to the current economic situation in Zimbabwe.
Minister Ncube has been declaring a budget surplus every year and yet he is not disbursing funds to ministries.
According to the 2019 Auditor-General Report, the treasury failed to disburse full allocate funds, a move that affected government programs.
As if that is not enough, the finance minister has also refused to increase civil servants’ salaries using the surplus. When it comes to salary increases, he is on record arguing there is not enough legroom to offer what is being asked for now.
Asked to rate the finance minister’s performance, Mutsamvi said Mthuli Ncube deserves a three out of 10 (3/10).
Mutsamvi said Mthuli Ncube has the capacity and the right training but is not relevant to the situation on the ground.
‘’I would rate Mthuli Ncube’s performance 3/10, not to take anything away from his qualifications. Mthuli Ncube is an intelligent educated high-profile technocrat alright, but I think when it comes to the Zimbabwean context his agenda is too removed from the people, it is too capital-centred.
‘’It is not pro-people when he is talking about economic growth, he is talking about indicators such as GDP. But we as people in Zimbabwe would like to see things manifesting, things like social service delivery improvements. We would want to see empowerment generation for young people. So, this is where we are conflicting when he is talking about economic growth and yet people want to see economic development.
‘’There are a lot of things, I could say the command kind of policing they are now implementing in the ministry of finance, a lot of Statutory Instruments where people are not consulted, so you can see his direction is focusing on GDP as a measure of growth but not the welfare of the people or status of the people.
‘’We now have the poorest working class in Zimbabwe where your teacher can not even afford to take their child to a decent school. So basically, some of these things this is where I think he is failing to balance economic growth and economic development. That is why I would give him a three, but you know, he is a brilliant guy he is just not being too relevant to the agenda of the day,” she said.
