APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabweans have reacted angrily to the decision by United Kingdom-based consultancy Reputation Poll International to name the country’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube as the “Best African Finance Minister of the Year”.
Ncube was handed the accolade during the Global Reputation Forum and Reputable Bank and Fintech Awards held in London at the weekend.
Reputation Poll International chairman Lord John Waverly praised Ncube for managing to transform Zimbabwe’s troubled economy “with a shoe-string budget”.
However, Zimbabweans described the award as a “joke”, particularly as it came when the southern African country is grappling with record employment estimated at around 85 percent and an inflation rate of 21.6 percent in November.
“Money must have exchanged hands here. What has Mthuli done that makes him the best finance minister on the continent when the country is using other people’s currencies,” one user wrote on microblogging site X, formerly Twitter.
Zimbabwe has used the US dollar and South African rand as legal tender since 2008 due to the instability of the local currency. Local consumers and businesses prefer the US dollar and rand as they are more stable stores of value.
Activist Hopewell Chin’ono described the award as an “insult” to Zimbabweans and described Reputation Poll International as a “bogus organisation”.
“It turns out the organisation that gave him the award is as bogus as his economy,” Chin’ono posted on X.
He accused Ncube of “presiding over the worst economy in the world” brought about by his “misguided and corrupt policies”.
JN/APA