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John mashaka hits at the fall of madafu
THE FALL OF THE SHILLING…..DEBATE!
The sudden drop in value of the domestic currency, Tanzanian Shilling, against major global currencies, is a matter of great concern. Currency Board – regulators- must urgently come up with a fix to contain this potential economic nightmare from become contagion; sending the domino effect into our main stream ailing economy, and perhaps plunging our country into economic chaos.
Within a span of two months, United States dollar has jumped from Tsh.1250 to a median of Tsh1400, against the Tanzanian shilling; a whopping 12% leap and seemingly sprinting towards Tsh 2,000, per one USD. This currency instability –fluctuation-is quite worrisome, not only to the domestic and foreign corporations; but to the entire economic spectrum. This trend may unravel uncontrollable inflation, and perhaps retard or suppress economic activity –growth-. This is a national concern that is sending chilling effects amongst the citizens on the direction of the nation. We can only ask ourselves on the mechanism that triggered, so abruptly, the fall of the shilling?
Purchase of foreign made industrial, agricultural equipment, and spare-parts need foreign currency –US Dollar, GB pound, Euro etc- . We need foreign currency for the importation of automobiles, purchase of medicine and other medical related equipment. Foreign currency is needed to send our children to school in India, Malaysia, UK, America etc. We even need foreign currency to import the cheap goods from Far East, and in the face of high unemployment, and stagnant wages, this sharp fall of currency, proportionally diminishes our purchasing power parity
A fall of the shilling means investments within the country will result in lower returns when converted back to the foreign currency, as such, most of foreign corporations will have no choice but to raise cost of their goods and services to meet operating cost and at the same time remain profitable. Otherwise, they may be forced to shut down their operations. Likewise, when the value of a domestic currency falls sharply, importation of essential goods and commodities proportionally decreases, resulting into a massive inflation, characterized by sky high prices of essential goods, and commodities
A few months ago, we discussed the impact of dollarization of an economy. Today we are inclined to revisit the topic, along with the nay Sayers – John Mashaka's vehement critics-, in order to explain how our country has gotten into this ferocious economic debacle? When we have to pay for housing, air ticket, maritime, and other services in foreign currency, we end up creating an artificial excessive demand for foreign currencies. Since our country's has a negative balance of payment, or trade imbalance; meaning we import more than we export, our foreign currency reserve is must always play in the negative territory
What the country is experiencing today is without a doubt, a beginning of an extreme inflation. I believe that, inflation will be a major event in the latter part of the year, with the consumer price index roughly doubling in the next few months. Taking into account the rate of unemployment, and stagnant wages vs. rise in cost of living, I tend to see prices of basic commodities doubling and even tripling in the next few months, should the shilling continue to lose ground against major currencies. This situation will force many importers out of business as a result of high cost of the foreign goods in relation to the revenue needed to remain operational
The abrupt dive of our currency may be poor man's problem at the moment, but has time goes, even the societal elite will fill the pinch when some of their billions stashed domestically, turns out to be worthless. It becomes unsustainable when a loaf of bread fetches more than Tsh. 10,000, Sugar Tsh. 12,000 and so forth. Already, millions around the country are experiencing unusual economic hardship; my recent trip to Tanzania exposed me to rather, a painful encounter; I met a school teacher who could not only send her son to a secondary school, but was also unable to buy one kilogram of sugar. Similar stories are everywhere in Tanzania
Zimbabwe is a vivid example our country should learn from, and with elections nearing, we SHOULD expect both legal and ill gotten money into the circulation chasing few goods, and the little foreign currency in the country. Without enforcement of monetary policies, domestic usage of the dollar will only continue to thrive. This must be stopped at all cost, as it makes very little sense to use a foreign currency in a sovereign nation. Why should people pay rent in USD? Why should people purchase air tickets with foreign currencies?
If the wealthy within the establishment are imposing the usage of United States dollar, so that they can transfer their wealth into their foreign bank accounts, for the sake of the majority which is more than 98%, Governor Ben Ndulu, should be given more teeth to reign on commercial banks, and other financial institutions exhilarating this problem immediately, as this is one of the primary causes of the demise of the Shilling, else, we must reconcile with the emergence of new class of worthless of billionaires as the shilling continue to fall in value
On the face of the gloomy global economic outlook, we are certainly sure that, even our European and other Western backers currently battling economic blues of their own, will reduce the amount of aid to our country, which accounts for a bigger percentage of our national budget. Consequently, we should embrace ourselves for the worst case economic scenario as the foreign currency crisis will only deepen
With the prevailing economic hardship, many of the donor countries are not ready to prop-up nations with unclear economic policies. In the eyes of the world, we have failed to demonstrate fiscal conservativeness, and neither do we have visible, and attainable economic policies. In a simple language, we are corned with no way out. The only option we have is to make a u-turn from being donor dependant, to being an innovative nation, with abilities to correct our negative balance of payment. The onus is in the hands of our country leadership to adopt, and implement attainable economic policies. We must encourage domestic manufacturing; boost our exports while reducing our importation of the unnecessary goods to choke off excessive demand for the foreign currencies.
It is natural that humans respond positively by being innovative in times of need, than in times of abundance. This is the time to make good use of our natural resources; we must closely scrutinize the export our minerals to make sure the exports returns home in the form of foreign currency. We must massively advertize, and modernize our infrastructure to improve our tourism sector, expand and make less complicated our maritime services to attract businesses from land locked countries, which will in turn boost our access to foreign currencies. Amid global economic slowdown, our ministries must reduce or cut completely unnecessary foreign trips, straining and consuming millions of dollars from the treasury
In an absolute, or in worst case scenario, although these are extreme measures, we may be forced to peg our currency against the United States Dollar, British Pound and the Euro to save our economy from collapsing, or simply dollarize our economy as a measure of the last resort. This will give room for a fresh start even though will be extremely difficult for ordinary citizens, I however, have faith in Governor Ben Ndulu, should he be given the necessary tools and support he needs to curb this growing fiscal nightmare. This is my perspective let me hear yours!
Mungu Ibariki Tanzania
John Mashaka
mashaka.john@yahoo.com