Zimbabwe’s worst economic recession in years has given rise to a thriving black market in fuel, basic commodities and foreign currency. Basic foodstuffs are no longer available in shops. Shortages have pushed prices up by about 100% in the past six months.
”Total output for the manufacturing sector went down 40%, agriculture 50% and tourism down 70%, with unemployment shooting up to 80%. Ineptitude has knocked business confidence to such a low level, the lowest in years,” John Robertson, an economist, told the Mail & Guardian.
Zimbabwe has been steadily losing some of its most skilled citizens — according to the Reserve Bank there are 3,5-million people in the diaspora. The brain drain has severely impacted on the education, health and engineering sectors.
In the past five years, the Bretton Woods institutions have refused the country balance of payments support. The International Monetary Fund continued Zimbabwe’s suspension while international sanctions and continued isolation continue to bite.
”I don’t see any meaningful recovery in the next six to nine months,” said Eric Block, an economics commentator. ”It’s likely to get worse, but we have to start making some difficult decisions in order to start the recovery.”
The country’s slide comes amid five economic blueprints since independence. But none of the turn-around strategies has worked.
”We should address the problem of forex first, that is the root of the problem,” a market analyst who refused to be identified told the M&G.
”Unfortunately we don’t print United States dollars, and we don’t generate enough forex internally. We need balance of payments support and foreign direct investment that brings in foreign currency.”
In the past few weeks the police and Central Bank officials have raided hotels and market place stalls hunting for foreign currency, netting a paltry US$50 000.
”The politicians should start making friends with the Western world. In order to start these friendships we need to stop calling people names and restore law and order,” Block said.
But this jars with the strategy of the ruling Zanu-PF government, its avowedly anti-imperialist stance, and its ”look East” policy, which Simon Badza, of the University of Zimbabwe’s political science department, has described as a ”temporary management solution that I don’t think can take us very far.
”Harping on about the Chinese and their contribution to the liberation struggle 25 years after independence brings little benefit to the country.”
The economic and political problems in Zimbabwe defy logic. Confronted with similar challenges, many a government would have resigned or would have been voted out of office.
Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube has mooted an Eastern European-style velvet revolution to force the government’s hand. ”Zimbabwe offers a unique African situation in which that isn’t workable,” Brian Raftopolous, of the Harare-based Institute of Developmental Studies, retorted.
”Any form of political resistance will be ruthlessly crushed, it’s a non- starter,” said Badza. ”Even the African Union or the region will not recognise anything of that sort.”
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change also appears to have adopted this logic and is advocating a ”constitutional reform process that is transparent, inclusive and people driven.”
But that is cold comfort for citizens whose livelihoods have been destroyed.