Zimbabwe’s
economic melt-down is here and even the normally secretive Zanu PF government
is openly acknowledging it and the extremes the people are now going to to escape
the economic hardships it has brought.
"There
is a high demand for passports in Zimbabwe as people are leaving to escape the
economic crisis the country is facing," admitted Registrar General Tobaiwa
Mudede to a parliamentary committee last week.
Zimbabweans
are going mainly to SA and Botswana, the only countries where the can go now.
Tens ago they went further afield, UK, USA, Australia, Canada, etc. but the
doors to most of these other destinations have since been slummed shut to
Zimbabweans.
Zimbabwe’s
industries are all but died and so almost all the manufactured goods now imported
from SA or Botswana. These two countries have benefited greatly from all this
trade and a number of border towns have mushroomed and boomed, selling to Zimbabweans.
Zimbabweans have also flocked to these countries to shop but also in search of
work given the country’s 80% plus unemployment rate.
It is
hard to distinguish cross border traders from those seeking employment. Both SA
and Botswana have been deporting Zimbabweans who overstayed or were working without
permits. This new flood of Zimbabweans into SA and Botswana are bound to cause
some economic and social problems sooner or later. And there will another flood after this!
Zimbabwe’s
economic crisis is set to get worse, a lot worse because none of the causes fuelling
it are being addressed. None!
The
immediate causes of the economic crisis are the three decades of gross mismanagement
and rampant corruption by this Mugabe regime. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa
admitted there is “rampant corruption” when he announced the $6 000 per month cap
on pay packages of CEO in government owned / controlled institutions like Public
Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS), ZBC, City Councils, etc.
Before
the cap, the CEO of PSMAS, Cuthbert Dube, took home $ 500 000 per month. The
Minister had a list of 180 similar institutions including Plum Tree Council
whose CEO was paid a princely sum of $ 17 027.00 a month – his salary was a
modest $1 173.00 boosted by generous allowances of $15 854.00.
These
salaries were even more scandalous when one looks at the performance of the
institutions these individuals were leading. PSMAS members were being denied
any medical service because the society was no paying the service providers. The
same was true with the Councils; the rate payers were not getting even the most
basic services and the lowly paid Council workers were going for months without
being paid.
Years
of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have left all of these government
owned / controlled institutions in desperate need of large financial injections
(same is true for the rest of the other sectors of the economy). The Minister should
not have stopped at capping the salaries of these fat cats but instituted action
to recover as much as possible the wealth they have looted over the years. Every
little helps!
As for
the additional large cash injection these institution would have looked to
government and more specifically to its $27 billion ZimAsset. Sadly no
outsiders have offered to bankroll ZimAsset and so the scheme is died in the water.
Mugabe was sure the Chinese would help but they have since said they are not
going to contribute even a penny.
The
other important point about the CEO salary cap is that it does not apply to the
big chefs with government itself. If is no secret that all the top brass in the
Army, Police, CIO, Judiciary, and other senior civil servants are paid obscene
salaries and allowances whilst the lower get very poor wages.
How can
anyone believe the regime is finally stamping out corruption when Mugabe spends
$1 m on birthday bash one week, $ 10 m on a daughter’s wedding the next and a
further $ 5 m of statues of himself when a 100 children are dying every day of
preventable disease across the country?
After
Mugabe blatantly rigged the July 2013 elections it was clear the West was not going
to provide any financial assistance to the Mugabe regime. By rigging the
elections Mugabe was saying the mismanagement, corruption and brutal political
repression which had been the hallmarks of his rule in the past were going to
continue. It was going to be business as usual after the restraints imposed on
him during the GNU. The West’s reply was clear enough – they did not much care
to do business with him!
Zimbabwe’s
economic crisis was brought on by the decades of mismanagement and corruption
and without financial help the country is clearly not going get out of this
hole. Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections, with the help of MDC who failed to
implement not even one democratic reform, to stay in power. But now that he is
back in State House Mugabe is now realizing that bamboozling Tsvangirai and
rigging the elections were easy “rigging” economic recovery is impossible.
The only
way out of this political and economic quagmire, is for Mugabe to go so that
the nation can hold free and fair elections to produce a government with the mandate
to rule and international legitimacy. It is the duty of all Zimbabweans to
ensure that Mugabe goes or else the economic crisis the nation is facing today
will only get worse.
4 comments:
@ Nyirenda
Education is just one of the many "commodities" that has suffered over the last 34 years health is another. But to say these are subject to the same laws of supply and demand is to miss the point. The demand for health care is stronger now than ever, for example. Education, health, food production, etc. etc. have suffered because the country's political system has distorted the market so the normal economic laws no longer applied.
34 years of mismanagement, corruption and political repression has destroyed the country's education system and crashed the hopes and dreams of those who passed as well as those who failed their "O" levels. Many of those who passed will still not go any further because their parents can not afford the fees and those lucky enough to carry on will join the 80% plus unemployment soon enough.
@ Chimbwido
@ Chimbwido
And yet Zimbabweans have been leaving their country in droves for decades now to go to all these other countries facing the same economic crisis of their own. Indeed, these other nations have been fighting a losing battle deporting Zimbabweans and yet they keep returning.
You Chimbwido you are always singing Mugabe praises and yet would not go back to Zimbabwe. When you suggested going back your wife told you in no uncertain terms to stop talking out of your a****!
The economic crisis in Zimbabwe is costing hundreds of thousands of human lives and not dollars as is the case in other countries. You are too stupid to even begin to comprehend the seriousness of Zimbabwe's situation.
You have shed the lives of over 30 000 innocent lives and throughout the years you have never shown any remorse. All these men, women and children might as well have been ants as far as you are concerned. If hundreds of thousands were to die of cholera or some such disease because of the lack of something as basic as clean running water you and Mugabe would not be at all concerned.
The only thing that will seat up and listen is the judge sentencing you lot to hang for the blood on your hands! It is for that reason that you people must be brought to court; just to stop you making a mockery of the suffering and deaths you have so callously brought onto others! I am committed to see to it that justice is done; that you and tyrants like Mugabe hang!
@ Sound of blackness
I think most people will be aware of all the challenges you have mentions and yet still the leave in droves. That is the measure of just how desperate these people are.
You are right to ask; "where and when will all this suffering end?"
The simple answer to that it will only end when Zimbabweans finally realize that it is us and no one else who have to stand up and demand an end to all this madness. So far a few expect Mugabe to change and many expect the blundering Tsvangirai to force Mugabe to change. It is little wonder we are in this mess!
Tsvangirai, even now with the benefit of hindsight does not get it; yes Mugabe rigged the elections but only because he had failed to implement not even one democratic reforms.
The principle task for the GNU was to implement the reforms and held free, fair and credible elections. This was not done!
To be fair to SADC they did remind Tsvangirai and MDC countless times to "follow the GPA road map" but it went in one ear and out the other.
Tsvangirai has not said how the new GNU would implement the reforms this time. He did not appreciate the importance of the reforms back in 2008 and he still does not today. All he wants is for him and his friends to be back on the gravy train.
The way forward is for Mugabe and Zanu PF to step aside so that the task of implementing the reforms and then holding free and fair elections can start.
The GNU was a stupid idea back in 2008 and it is even more so today! Only some one as incompetent as Tsvangirai would have accepted it back in 2008 but one would have thought he learnt the lesson and would never advocate it ever again. Well we now know he is that incompetent to suggest it again!
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