Zimbabwe is using Western sanctions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and his coterie as a convenient excuse to explain its economic meltdown, the United States ambassador to Harare said in remarks published on Thursday.
”Neither the US nor any other country has imposed general sanctions on the Southern African nation,” Christopher Dell wrote in the independent Financial Gazette.
”Instead, what the US and others did was to target financial and travel sanctions at the roughly 100 individuals most responsible for undermining Zimbabwe’s prosperity and democracy.”
Mugabe and his ministers routinely blame an economic meltdown on targeted sanctions imposed on them by Washington and the European Union following the 2002 presidential polls, which the opposition says were rigged.
Zimbabwe’s once-model economy is in tatters with four-digit inflation, spiralling unemployment and an acute shortage of food and essential goods.
Analysts say the slide was accelerated by controversial land reforms, which saw the state seizing land from white farmers and doling it out to landless black people, often without skills, causing output to plummet and creating food scarcity.
Dell said, contrary to Zimbabwean media reports, US firms ”continue to do business in Zimbabwe”, adding that ”Zimbabwe enjoys a trade surplus with the US”.
He wrote that the ”key” to turning around the economy ”is the political will needed to implement market reforms with the International Monetary Fund and others, including the US, which they have been recommending the past few years.
”If the Zimbabwean government is sincere in its desire to improve governance by embracing economic and political reforms, the US as well as other donors will be supportive,” Dell said.
”The future of your country is in your hands,” he added.
Food rations
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the government has started handing out food rations to junior members of the defence force.
According to ZimOnline, the government has started handing out rations to offset discontent with meagre salaries.
The Zimbabwean government has begun giving junior members of the uniformed forces food rations to supplement their meagre salaries amid widespread fears of revolt by disgruntled junior security officers, ZimOnline has learnt.
In a move highlighting that all is not well within the security forces, the government is said to have begun giving out the food rations last Friday to contain rising discontent within the army and police over poor salaries.
The lowest paid junior officers in the army and police force earn about Z$75 000 ($300) per month, an amount that is way below the Z$460 000 ($1 843) that the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe says a family of five needs per month to survive.
Army commander Constantine Chiwenga and police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri last year told Mugabe to hike salaries ten-fold to boost morale among security forces.
A soldier based at the Imbizo barracks in Bulawayo confirmed to ZimOnline on Wednesday that the government is giving them food rations to complement their salaries.
A junior officer said he had received a 10kg bag of maize, two litres of cooking oil, a 1kg packet of fish and a 1kg bag of sugar beans.
”We came here to work for money and not food. I think the old man is not serious at all,” said a junior police officer, who preferred not to be named.
Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi confirmed that the government is handing out food rations to soldiers.
He said: ”This is just one of the many efforts we are putting in to make sure that members of the security forces are well catered for.
”The issue of their salaries is also being looked into and will be addressed as soon as funds are made available,” he said.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said the move to hand out the rations was meant to alleviate some of the suffering among junior police officers.
”The junior officers will receive the rations as a way of alleviating their financial problems. The government realises that the money they are getting is not enough. — Sapa-AFP, ZimOnline