PRINCIPALS under the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad) have claimed that they rescued the country from total economic collapse after President Emmerson Mnangagwa, after the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe implemented recommendations made by the platform.
Polad members said after the 2018 elections, the country was heading for an economic mess and the grouping proposed a cocktail of measures to rescue Mnangagwa out of the quagmire.
Polad head of the economic thematic committee, Trust Chikohora said the economic summit in 2020 proffered solutions for the turning around of Zimbabwe’s suffocating economy.
“The economic summit unearthed real issues that were affecting our economy from stakeholders and the market. The market and stakeholders came up with their recommendations and we compiled a report and handed it to Mnangagwa for his consideration and we are glad the report was implemented,” he said.
Chikohora said Polad’s Currency Indaba held in 2022 also helped stabilise the currency.
The main thrust of the Currency Indaba was to come up with strategies to deal with issues of the currency market and tame inflation in order to achieve economic growth as spelt out in the country’s Vision 2030.
“One of the major issues raised was the government's contracts. We realised that contractors were pushing inflation and the government revisited its agreements and inflation started to slow down. Even the issues of gold coins and interest rates were also our idea,” Chikohora said.
Another Polad member, Welcome Shumba said the grouping also helped the government by strongly advocating against sanctions.
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“We are part of the people who took part in the protests against sanctions and our common position is that sanctions must go and we have been lobbying for that,” he said.
Mnangagwa gave Polad principals — a grouping of fringe political parties that lost during the 2018 general elections — an unfettered access to him, pampering them with top of the range vehicles and allowing them to conduct their meetings at some of the country’s most exclusive resorts.
