Tsvangirai on the economy in Zimbabwe

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe, had an article in the Wall Street Journal just before the seemingly never ending presidential election in Zimbabwe got under way. Tsvangirai wrote

Economic mismanagement by Mr. Mugabe's government is an even more serious problem. Zimbabwe's inflation and unemployment rates are 150,000% and 80% respectively. Infrastructure is crumbling, and education and health-care systems have collapsed. Life expectancy is now among the lowest in the world, having declined, since 1994, to 34 years from 57 years for women, and to 37 years from 54 for men. Some four million of my fellow citizens have fled the country, taking with them both human and financial capital.

Later he writes

Today, Zimbabwe ranks last out of the 141 countries surveyed by the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom in the World report. According to 2007 World Bank estimates, it takes 96 days to start a business in Zimbabwe. It takes only two days in Australia. Waiting for necessary licenses takes 952 days in Zimbabwe, but only 34 days in South Korea. Registering property in Zimbabwe costs an astonishing 25% of the property's value. In the United States, it costs only 0.5%.

On the size of government he notes

The third factor responsible for the country's decline is the size and rapaciousness of the government. Today, that size is determined by the requirements of patronage. But a government that provides hardly any public services cannot justify the need for 45 ministers and deputy ministers, all of whom enjoy perks ranging from expensive SUVs to farms that were confiscated from others.

The central bank in Zimbabwe is also criticised

The Central Bank too has departed from its traditional role of stabilizing prices. Instead, it dishes out money to dysfunctional, government-owned corporations that are controlled by the ZANU-PF and are accountable to no one. The result is runaway growth in the money supply, and the highest inflation rate in the world. Zimbabwe's potential for economic growth cannot be realized without macroeconomic stability. Hyperinflation must be tamed, in part by taming the government's appetite for spending.

Zimbabwe's SOEs are in Tsvangirai view

... woefully inefficient, a strain on the budget and a much-abused vehicle for ZANU-PF patronage. They will be privatized or shut down.

Nothing in the article makes for good reading, but its all the worse because Zimbabwe was, not so long ago, a rich, by African standards, country. Today its a cot-case, even by African standards.