Cash crisis: Save our souls, Comrades! Minister Chinamasa

my turnIt is in the interest of the ruling party and Government to make sure anything that undermines national confidence and happiness is stopped.

An incident happened in one bank over the weekend that were it not so tragic, it would have been comic.

It involved a woman who could be said to be past middle age and is now chancing on being old.

She said, as was later learnt, she was a pensioner.

She had spent the whole day queuing at the bank to get some money — her money — like scores of others who had waited for their limited amounts outside the building at the ATM.

The better part of the day had been fruitless, the money that had been fed into the machine quickly dissipated.

But people waited.

They had heard from the wind that some more money would be fed into the machine at the end of the banking business day.

That didn’t quite happen.

Instead, at around 4pm (and banks are working these hours these days), a limited number of people was allowed into the banking hall for some last-gasp withdrawals.

The woman was not so lucky.

She was among the scores who made it into the building, but not beyond the glass cubicles that act as entrance and exit points.

The people were bitter, desperately so.

Some had travelled from out of town, or so they claimed, while others wanted to settle medical bills — again as they claimed.

And there was this man who was complaining how others who had come after him had been allowed, yet had they maintained the queue outside he would have been the first.

Was there something wrong about his face or had he just been “marked” (meaning, being unreasonably hated or disliked)?

Things were getting nasty fast and security personnel were at the danger of being overpowered and the banking hall stormed.

Which was what the woman had in mind.

As soon as the security guard came out using the normal exit point, the woman sought to use her small frame to squeeze from under the guard’s arm into the cubicle.

It was dramatic.

The guard was taken by surprise but sprung his hand down to restrain the woman, checking her, but sending the woman — with the inertia of her small body — surging forward and smashing her head onto the glass panels.

People gaped in surprised amusement and shock at the little play.

The guard quickly came to his senses and slammed the other side whence the women came; the simple security mechanism meant that the woman would not come out on the other end.

So, there she was, a little prisoner in a glass cage!

She looked miserable and for a moment people giggled and guffawed at her misfortune.

The guard was quick to redeem her, though, bailing her back outside.

It took the intervention of the kindly bank manager to let the desperate woman who was all smiles, in.

She took her position in the queue which was just behind this writer who had been lucky to have been in the building looking for alternatives to cash transactions when the last windfall of the day was announced.

After watching her ordeal, the same writer allowed the poor woman passage to one place ahead and small talk about the economy, which also drew neighbours in the cash vigil, all avoiding reference to the embarrassing incident.

But the incident is a poignant illustration of how things are slowly getting bad in relation to the cash crisis.

Long queues have resurfaced at banks and wherever you turn there are miserable faces whose owners would not have accessed their cash or sufficient amounts of it to cover basics and other attendant requirements.

It is only someone from another planet that can be blind to this situation — and it’s bad.

It is threatening to get worse.

People are suddenly feeling besieged with something as frightening as the cash shortages (along with other shortages such as that of fuel and basic commodities) that obtained in s2008.

We are not insulated from these shortages and the feelings and fears of the public.

Authorities are being called to act, and act fast.

Minister Chinamasa

Minister Chinamasa

It’s an urgent SOS to the Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamasa and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Dr John Mangudya.

This two-man cast is symbolic; the one a political force and the other a technocrat.

It is time that they rose to the occasion and give confidence to their countrymen, something Cde Chinamasa, as the politician of the ruling party, has been either short or shy of doing.

To many people he has been doing a lot of work negotiating with institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, which appear to be his only egg baskets.

To his credit, they have been commending him in his “reformist” mindset and approach.

But nothing has been felt and seen by the masses, who expect politicians to be some kind of Father Christmases and have long expected Cde Chinamasa to have brought something home now, apart from the commendations.

Such commendations do not necessarily lift the spirit of a nation and the sad, long faces at the banks say just that.

On the other hand, the bond currency issue, something identifiable with the RBZ chief, has inadvertently been poisoned by an apparent self doubt on the part of monetary authorities to further entrench it via the issuance of notes.

Dr Mangudya

Dr Mangudya

The dithering by the RBZ does not inspire confidence even when the initiative of bond coins got support at the beginning.

So, things are not moving in the right direction and the authorities need to find solutions fast enough.

That, of course, does not exactly include consulting questionable characters who look all but set to undermine and subvert measures that Government might take to alleviate the challenges that Zimbabwe is facing.

In other words, this is the time to summon all the creative energies at both fiscal and monetary levels to make sure that this seemingly relentless march towards national crisis is stopped dead.

It is in the interest of the ruling party and Government to make sure anything that undermines national confidence and happiness is stopped.

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