Last week we got a glimpse into the denialism that drives policy at the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe when their “draft” de-dollarisation strategy found its way onto social media. It showed how, despite promising us a month ago, that they would be liberalising the exchange rate, they intend to keep it fixed.

It was such a worrying and disheartening document that had people shaking their heads in disbelief but the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had comforting news. The document was just a draft and not supposed to be for public consumption:

Ignore the document at your own peril

If you are a business or individual whose operations will be impacted on by some of the contents of this draft document-in fact everyone in Zimbabwe is affected-then its good advice to take everything in this document as the truth. Experience has shown how even crazy suggestions such as the government demanding duty in foreign currency have turned out to be true.

Also, the fact that the government has fixed the exchange rate at 25:1 USD despite promising the opposite a month ago should be a harbinger of things to come. Leaked or not the document shows the prevailing denialism, hubris and arrogance that has dominated policy at the Reserve Bank. It would be very unwise to ignore the document in its entirety.

The RBZ was caught with it’s pants down this time around but it does not mean for a second they are not going to go through with measures outlined in there. They would prefer to spring them upon you as nasty surprises.You will thank me later.

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