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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Inclusive government - Index of articles
2009
Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review
Ministry of
Finance
July 16, 2009
http://www.zimtreasury.org/downloads-sub.cfm?SubID=11
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INTRODUCTION
2. Mr. Speaker
Sir, it is exactly 150 days since the Inclusive Government began
work on Monday, 16 February 2009.
3. This Mid-Year
Fiscal Policy Review updates Honourable Members and the Nation on
the State of the Economy, focussing on both fiscal and overall economic
developments as we implemented our Short Term Emergency Recovery
Programme during the first half of the year.
4. Mr Speaker
Sir, given the reality of our situation, and the fact that we are
basically starting afresh, this Review will devote itself to economic
developments before 2009. An approach that looks at the past creates
the necessary platform to correctly inform and excavate the necessary
policy adjustments and measures for the future.
5. Most importantly,
it is history and our collective understanding of the past which
must stand against the temptation to go back to omissions and commissions
of the past.
6. The Review
also aims to consolidate the framework of openness and economic
freedom enunciated in the Short
Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP). Put simply, it is
intended to further rehabilitate the economy from a past of controls
and dirigisme, whilst at the same time ensuring the enhancement
of safety nets and social protection programmes of STERP.
7. This Review
will also realign the 2009 Budget expenditure priorities to expected
revenue inflows, consistent with the Cash Budgeting policy thrust
we adopted in February 2009. In short, we will continue "eating
only that which we have hunted".
8. Mr Speaker
Sir, before turning to the State of the Economy, Honourable Members
will acknowledge the inter-linkage between the prevailing political
dispensation and developments on the economic front since the formation
of the Inclusive Government following last year's signing of the
Global
Political Agreement.
9. Mr Speaker
Sir, it is common cause that the principal political parties executed
a political agreement on 15 September 2008. That agreement represented
a voluntary getting together of political actors that were involuntarily
brought together by the harsh reality of economic and political
factors that forced the same to board the same bus of compromise.
10. The Global
Political Agreement represented on both sides the absence of a viable
or alternative option to the attrition, stalemate, conflict, violence,
debilitating and disempowering effect of a decade long political
crisis.
11. That crisis
had seen a massive de-industrialisation of the economy, deep seated
poverty, sustained periods of negative GDP growth rates, the collapse
of social services, food shortages, and massive despondency in the
country.
12. The fundamental
reality that brought all the actors into an unhappy compromise has
not gone away. However, it seems that a few of us either have amnesia
or short memories, and that a few were never convinced about the
inevitability of the project at the first instance. Whatever the
case may be, it is an unacceptable reality that five months down
the line there are still critical foundational, qualitative and
quantitative issues in respect of this relationship.
13. Furthermore,
that there are various breaches of the Global Political Agreement
still outstanding and, more fundamentally, that there is little
delivery and execution of agreed positions taken in the Global Political
Agreement, particularly on matters around human rights and the rule
of law is as regrettable as it is unwelcome.
14. The reality
of the matter is that political factors need to be liquidated as
a matter of urgency so that the country does not continue to be
held hostage to the past. Getting politics out of the way requires
one thing and one thing alone, the full, proper, unequivocal and
unambiguous implementation of the Global Political Agreement in
its letter and spirit.
15. Notwithstanding
the above, Mr Speaker Sir, this "ship" has left the dock
and is in motion. The reality of the matter is that the Inclusive
Government is in a net surplus position, performance wise. What
is critical, therefore, is to consolidate the gains of the past
few months, whilst at the same time ensuring full compliance, implementation,
execution and delivery on the outstanding issues.
16. Mr. Speaker
Sir, our country had sunk to unacceptably high levels of fragility
that bordered on total State failure. Thus, the work of the Inclusive
Government involves rehabilitating and rebuilding this country.
Put in simple terms, the Inclusive Government's fundamental function
is to re-lay the foundation of a normal functional vibrant African
democracy.
17. The foundation
stones and the relevant concrete mixes which we laid out in the
Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) are:
- The establishment
of peace and stability in the country;
- The pursuit
of a programme of national healing;
- The Constitutional
making process and the democratisation agenda;
- Provision
of adequate and quality basic social services, social safety nets
in the rural and urban areas and, indeed, the execution of a comprehensive
social protection programme;
- Macro-economic
stabilisation in our country; and
- The socio-economic
transformation of Zimbabwe through capital and institutional development
that places at the centre, information communication technology.
18. Furthermore,
as stated in STERP, our Vision of the house we are constructing
is an inclusive, sustainable developmental Zimbabwe that is based
on participatory democracy.
19. In this
regard, the operational objectives of the Inclusive Government as
clearly enunciated in STERP are:
- The creation
of a responsive, yet efficient State that uses redistributive
mechanisms, social rights, while maintaining social development;
- Building
of a strong economy, using market principles with careful State
interventions to advance social protection and justice;
- Establishment
of a participatory political democracy through the new people
driven Constitution and the rebuilding of fundamental democratic
institutions in our country.
20. Indeed,
it is in the best interest of every Zimbabwean that the above Vision
becomes a shared one. We do not have a right to abuse future generations
by kidnapping the future to the present order of political uncertainty,
hypocrisy, opportunism, prevarication and political fornication.
We have a duty to be decisive, consistent, reliable, honest and
true to our agreements.
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