It takes a kind of special stupidity to be Mahere

It takes a kind of special stupidity to be Mahere

Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa

While in court, lawyers tend to address each other as my educated colleague before a put-down. They also tend to throw in verbose terms or fancy Latin phrases just to sound fancy. Who will ever forget Adv. Thabani Moyo’s the fulcrum, the pith statement in the Nelson Chamisa Presidential court challenge of 2018?

A lawyer is a licensed professional who advises and represents others in legal matters. This is succinct to our story for today. Their knowledge, while not limited to the legal, is mostly legal which means they can comment and speak freely on the matter and we all will give an ear.

There is nowhere in their training that makes them Economists or experts in the field of Finance. They definitely are at sea in the field despite their ‘learned’ tag. We have had several Ministers of Finance with a legal background from the current President ED Mnangagwa himself to the calm and suave Cde P. A. Chinamasa and the querulous Tendai Biti.

What many miss is that a Minister’s work is more political than anything. The real work is done by the experts behind the scenes, the technocrats, Mandarins of Finance or whatever field they will be heading. That they are Ministers in the field does not make them experts. It only makes them people with a political jacket appointed into a position of trust by the Principal.

Now, that makes Tendai Biti just a fanciful dwarf in giant robes when it comes to Finance. Certainly not in a position to educate Professor Mthuli Ncube, a whole Professor on Finance and Economics on Economics and Finance. He certainly cannot educate PS George Guvamatanga and the two Johns, Dr Mutambara and Dr Mushayavanhu on currencies.

But Biti is not my issue today, rather it is the loquacious and gabby Fadzayi Mahere. She, whose attempt to raise a point in limine as “being the fruit of an idle mind fixated on buying time in the most callous manner’ by Mantonsi, J. is the subject today. Mahere, a lawyer known more for her colorful lifestyle and even more colorful pronunciation of words has been making the loudest noises about the new currency introduced last Friday by the new Banking Chief in Zimbabwe, Dr John Mushayavanhu.

Mahere whose profligacy does not end only with words seems to have extended to the thinking as well, a skill she was given a dismal C for by the University of Cambridge. She, who decided to resign from Parliament in solidarity with lawlessness sponsored by Nelson Chamisa, another lawyer who fancies himself God’s viceregent on earth cannot be telling the world “we need new leaders.”

Her definition of a new leader means a person who runs a political party without structures, a single meeting, a constitution and makes appointments based on voices from the holy spirit. Such a version of a leader according to Mahere is what we need. A lawyer who does not know that you cannot stand in solidarity with lawlessness and that you must abide by Court judgments is not good. A decision based on emotions sans logical thinking is typical of Mahere, who uses a humpty dumpty defense outline

It takes a special kind of stupidity to be Fadzayi Mahere. She has been pontificating about how the ZiG would not work, how its not money and how its not backed on anything etc. Well, Fadzayi, firstly, money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange and medium of exchange is anything that is widely accepted as a means of payment. The fact that something can be exchanged for other goods and services makes it money.

Money, ultimately, is defined by people and what they do and when people use something as a medium of exchange, it becomes money. If people were to begin accepting handshakes and hugs as payment for most goods and services, handshakes and hugs would be money.

Something does not need to have intrinsic value to serve as money and fiat money is money that some authority, generally a government, has ordered to be accepted as a medium of exchange. And that is what the USD, Rand, Pula, Euro, Pound, etc is. The currency—paper money and coins—used in the United States today is fiat money; it has no value other than its use as money.

You cannot be both stupid and foolish, fiat money serves only as a medium of exchange because its use as such is authorized by the government; it has no intrinsic value. But the ZiG is backed by gold and its value is set at 1 milligram of Gold. How Mahere says USD, backed by nothing is better than money backed by gold only she knows.

Fadzayi not being one, would not know that Economists use the word “fiat,” which in Latin means “let it be done,” to describe money that has no intrinsic value. It gets its value because a government or authority has declared it to be legal tender.

Now, the only thing she seems to be aware of is that a currency has to be accepted. But instead of advocating for its acceptance, which would make it even stronger, she has been on a crusade to discredit it, not because it’s bad money, but simply because she hates the government and hence ultimately Zimbabwe.
Opposition for the sake of it is not only stupid but foolishness and Mahere, for a learned person has displayed it in abundance.