Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti anticipates that the 2021 national budget to be presented this Thursday will be devoid of substance and will fail to address the critical ills bedevilling the country’s economy.
Biti says he does not foresee Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube addressing the currency issue or offer a stimulus package to the struggling economy. Biti said:
We expect the budget to be an overzealous exercise in self-delusion and grandiose self-praise. In other words a giant yawn. It will not address the issue of currency. It will not accept that de-dollarization has failed. It will not restore real value to wages and pensions.
It will not offer any stimulus to the economy. It will not offer a way out of the depression. Its biggest weakness lies in that it will be indexed in the local currency when the real economy out there is now a US cash economy. Without this reality, the budget will be a fiction.
Ncube was expected to present the 2021 national budget in the National Assembly on Thursday, 26 November 2020.