In our latest email newsletter we asked our subscribers to send in their thoughts on the ZBC poll and what was missing from their list of causes of the current shortages of basic commodities. Here are a few of their responses:

The government is responsible.

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With interest I saw your poll on your website regarding who is to blame for shortages. May I suggest to add other possible culprits: the pricing control commission, the ministry of commerce and the cabinet.

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I was interested to see that you are carrying a poll on your website re the shortages, but I do feel you are not providing the viewer with sufficient choices to make the poll meaningful as they are limited to manufacturers, retailers, black market, western sanctions. May I suggest that you add government to the list – this may provide you with a more credible result.

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My strongest opinion is that shortages have been caused mainly by the ruling party chefs as they are the only ones with meaningful business properties in Zimbabwe. They own up everything. How many opposition members we know who are operators of all sots of businesses beside Zanu PF stalwarts. It is a wonder that Mugabe stands there pointing his finger at western sanctions when he cannot ask his politburo friends what they are doing within their businesses. They are all in agreement that goods are extremely expensive when they stand in their meetings but cannot wait to run straight back to their organizations to push upwards prices then claim later suppliers have cut back supplies because of price controls. They are not a clean lot. They are the greatest shortages causers.

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The range of options is too narrow, and tends to show that the author of the survey has a superficial appreciation of how economies function. In fact the question should be: why are Zimbabwean producers not satisfying the demands of the market? In respect of the present, superficial question my response would be: NONE OF THE SUGGESTED ANSWERS -
Manufacturers – do not have the inputs required, as they cannot afford them
Retailers – do not manufacture anything, they are just intermediaries
The black market – is always created by bottlenecks in supply, and can disappear as quickly as it can appear if there are changes in those areas
Western sanctions – what sanctions? Preventing a megalomaniac dictator and his cohorts from gallivanting all over the world at will talking nonsense certainly does not equate to sanctions.

The real cause is the subordination of everything else in that country and economy to uncontrolled hunger for dominance of everything and everyone! All other ’causes’ are just symptoms and consequences. My two cents worth.

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My views are retailers are to blame because when they have goods which are scarce they take advantage and sell these to their staff who later transfer this to the black market. Black market is at other times responsible, but their contribution to this can be cut straight right easily. If supply is increased. On the term of the Manufacturer it is difficult for them to fill the market even, if they are responsible for commodity shortages but they have corners to hide about this they blame low production, high running costs, lack of foreign currency and poor electricity supply.

So as my point of view before these 4 above have been resolved I think shortage will continue and builds up more opportunity for black market. For us to have a good point of view let’s think what are factors that builds black market.

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ZBC should be on the list, broadcast the truth of the matter and you get off the list clean.

This entry was posted on October 19th, 2007 at 9:22 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.