A street entertainer put the shell of a broken television over his head, mimicked a TV performer and invited passers-by to do the same to make their children laugh — for a small donation.
”Hey, and you don’t need electricity for this television,” he quipped about the daily power outages, and then collected low-denomination bank notes — there are no coins in hyperinflationary Zimbabwe.
His performance gave some cheer in an otherwise gloomy Harare shopping mall, where luxuries and basic foodstuffs are out of the reach of most Zimbabweans who were preparing for a bleak Christmas.
A block away, thousands joined chaotic lines waiting for buses to travel to their rural homes, where urban Zimbabweans traditionally spend the holidays with their families. Fewer buses were running this year and conductors, known as touts, deepened the misery by taking bribes to let passengers on to their overcrowded vehicles.
”This is horrible. I don’t have any more money,” said John Midzi, a casual labourer who spent the night at the bus park and was abandoning his journey to Mutoko, 140km north-east of the capital. Fares went up overnight too, he said.
There were safety concerns over overcrowding and poor maintenance on buses as well as drivers suffering from fatigue after working long hours to increase turnaround times, the Transport and Allied Workers’ Union said on Sunday.
”In their mad rush to make money, virtually all bus operators knowingly break these health and safety precautions,” said union spokesperson Charles Gusinyu.
Zimbabwe’s worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 has led to acute shortages of gasoline, spare parts and tyres for aging buses.
Routine water and power outages across the nation have affected homes, repair shops, businesses and factories, few of whom have been able to pay seasonal bonuses to their workers. With record unemployment, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries estimates most key factories are operating at below 30% of capacity.
Caretakers and ground staff at one residential complex in Harare had received no pay by Sunday for December after the real-estate firm managing the complex said occupiers failed to pay their regular contributions to the wage bill.
Zimbabwe is suffering official inflation of 1 090%, the highest in the world. The price of scarce flour and bread, traditional fare for the poor at Christmas, doubled on Friday to Z$700. Scarce gasoline sells on the black market for seven times the official price.
The United States dollar fetched at least Z$2 600 on the black market this week. The official exchange rate set by the central bank is Z$250 to $1.
In well-to-do suburbs of the cities, supermarkets reported the lowest December turnover since independence.
Frequent power outages this month have extinguished Christmas lights — far fewer this year than in the past. Even a tattered wooden display pyramid appealing for donations to the Harare Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund looked in need of some charity itself, as it had not received a lick of paint since last year.
In the bizarre economy of this troubled Southern African nation the cheapest ”economy beef” cost $34 per kilogram at the official rate or $3,20 at the unofficial rate.
But only Zimbabwe’s elite and the families of 3,5-million Zimbabweans who have fled abroad and send money home have access to hard currency for illegal black-market deals.
According to United Nations estimates, most impoverished Zimbabweans live on one meal or less a day. Nearly two million are currently receiving food aid. Charities have reported rural poor eating field mice and offal from abattoirs that would otherwise be mashed into pet food. — Sapa-AP