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MDC plan to 'restart' economy
30/01/2004 09:03 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) finally launched a proposed rescue package for the beleaguered economy on Thursday just minutes after a court granted it an 11th-hour approval to hold the meeting, which police had outlawed.
Police had earlier denied the party approval as required under the country's controversial Public Order and Security Act.
Party spokesperson Paul Temba Nyathi said the police had withheld approval despite the application's having been lodged a week ago, as required by law.
Scores of police, some with dogs, were seen patrolling the grounds of the five-star Sheraton Hotel as several hundred opposition officials, supporters and diplomats made a last minute rush to the venue.
The meeting went on uninterrupted with party president Morgan Tsvangirai officially launching the 70-page economic policy document.
It aims to stabilise the macro-economy, recover levels of savings, investment and growth, focusing initially on governance, the humanitarian crisis, the HIV/Aids pandemic, job creation and resolving the land question.
Police had earlier said the MDC's first application was submitted to the wrong office, and therefore not processed.
A fresh application was lodged on Monday for permission to hold the meeting to launch the MDC's economic blueprint but "the police say that this is insufficient notice for them," Nyathi said.
Under the law a notice must be made four days in advance of a planned meeting.
Lies and excuses
"These are merely lies and excuses from a regime that seeks to prevent the people... access to a comprehensive programme," said Nyathi.
The MDC accused the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) of preventing it from publishing policies that offer a solution to Zimbabwe's grave economic crisis.
"Zanu-PF fears that this MDC programme will fully expose its own shortcomings," Nyathi said.
Launching the document, Tsvangirai blamed President Robert Mugabe's government for the "mess, decay and economic failure" the southern African country is experiencing.
Rot is entrenched
"Recent events clearly show that the rot is entrenched in a corrupt system of political patronage, nursed by a corrupt dictatorship that seeks to cling on power at the expense of the majority," said Tsvangirai.
The MDC said its document, which took nine months to be put together by a team of experts and academics "offers a diagnosis and a prescription for long term recovery and growth".
The central bank recently introduced measures that have seen prices of certain basic commodities come back down and the country's currency firming against international currencies on the foreign exchange market.
The MDC's blueprint for change is dubbed 'RESTART' - which stands for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery, Transformation.
- AFP
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