Zimbabwe inflation poses threat to all, including the Government
Monday, 29th December 2008. 8:43am
By: Obert Matahwa.
Harare: As millions of young and energetic Zimbabweans run away and cross the border illegally into neighbouring countries, especially South Africa, Botswana Mozambique and Zambia, the aged are mostly hard hit, especially pensioners who savings have been eroded by the world’s highest inflation said to be over 300 million per cent and predicted to have breached the one billion percentage barrier by the private sector and the International Monetary Fund or the IMF.
Ms Sylvia Fraser is a city pensioner who retired in 1994 after decades working as a nurse in council clinics in Harare. She, like many of her age group, is struggling to provide food and shelter for hundreds of fellow pensioners at a senior citizens residential house made up of the few white community still remaining in Zimbabwe.
The country is in the throes of a hyperinflation, with unemployment levels of above 85 per cent and constant shortages of power, fuel and other basic commodities. Shops in urban as well as rural areas have been left virtually empty and most businesses have been adversely affected.
As the crisis deepens, it is becoming clear that the government has no action plan to manage the effects of the chaos in the economy. There is no plan to deal with the black market which has become the main source of commodities. The government did not have a plan to deal with retailers struggling to restock after being looted clean last year. It is still to be quantified how businesses that sold their goods at a loss will be able to restock and pay staff.
The government has not delivered on its promises to provide businesses with cheap foreign currency, fuel and funding. The businesses have been left to pick up the pieces and revive their enterprises on their own because the government is seeking huge political capital for President Robert Mugabe to prolong his career. Perhaps one of the clearest signs of the lack of a coherent plan is the fact the government itself does not realize that the crackdown will hit their revenues hard. Most companies are likely to declare losses and will therefore technically not be liable to pay corporate tax to the government. With company closures comes unemployment which will reduce the government’s income tax revenue and Mugabe is aware that the damage goes beyond that.
In midst of the hardship, Ms Fraser vowed to continue working with the elderly. “I can’t buy anything with a trillion and life is becoming expensive. My pension is very little at Z$136 a month,” she explains. One hundred and thirty-six Zimbabwe dollars is not enough for bus fare.
The scarcest commodities are meat and vegetables. Many have gone for months without a taste of any kind of meat. Some men have gone into hunting wild animals in farms surrounding the capital. Harare has gone dry for months and there is no water to grow vegetables in market gardens in the residential areas.
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