ZIMBABWE’s government will present its annual budget on Thursday to a restive population desperate for a solution to the country’s worst economic crisis since independence two decades ago. The country is struggling with record inflation of 69,7%, interest rates above 60%, formal sector unemployment at 50% and an unstable currency. Its public health system is collapsing due to poor funding and the strains of an HIV/AIDS epidemic, which government officials say is killing an average 1,200 people in the country every week. Junior doctors in the country’s major state hospitals have been on strike for the past month demanding higher wages and better working conditions, including adequate drugs and equipment from President Robert Mugabe’s government.
19