Gaborone businessman Thlomamo Patrick Dibeela has little sympathy for his Zimbabwean narrator as he listens to his tales of arrest and assault at the hands of the security services in Botswana.
”You don’t have a permit. You are a border jumper,” he tells Morris Mahlangu Lorenzo.
”We are generous but sometimes they take advantage … Five years ago, the situation was okay, but now you have murders, rapes. The situation has gone beyond control.”
His list of complaints is typical of the population in Botswana which is feeling the strain of the influx of Zimbabweans across their common border — but is also happy to take advantage of a cheap source of labour.
Dibeela, who runs a garage in downtown Gaborone, readily acknowledges that he employs many of the migrants. But he says they should all be prepared to return to the economic meltdown in their homeland once their three-month visas expire.
”After three months, they should leave and let others come,” he said.
According to government sources, Botswana is playing host to an estimated quarter of a million Zimbabweans — a number that is growing by the month as the situation back home under President Robert Mugabe goes from bad to worse.
The number is only a fraction of the million-plus who are believed to have headed across the Limpopo to South Africa, but the social impact on a country with a population of only two million is arguably felt more acutely.
The sleepy capital Gaborone is normally home to around 170 000 Botswanans but its population has been swelled by the Zimbabweans who can be seen hanging out on street corners and parking lots at all times of the day.
Olivia Manhembe manages to earn a few dollars a day by gathering cans which are then sold for scrap for 0,40 pula (about 85 US cents) per kilogramme.
”In Zimbabwe, there is no job, no food,” she explains.
”I came to seek for some money, but here it is nearly as difficult,” adds the 32-year-old, who lives in a wooden shack on the outskirts of the capital along with several other Zimbabweans.
Despite the hardships of every day life, Manhembe manages to save enough money to buy basic household goods that are almost impossible to find on supermarket shelves in Zimbabwe, and regularly returns to supply her family.
Lorenzo is similarly driven to join the ranks of Zimbabweans who offer themselves for a day’s labour — often for derisory wages that they are in no position to contest for fear of being denounced to the police.
Keeping a close eye out for police patrol cars, he recalled how he had twice been deported, including once after being picked up even though he had made a 120km detour on foot to avoid a roadblock.
”I came back by foot again the same night,” he said. ”If we see the police now we run … I have been beaten many times.”
While he insists he has no complaints with his current boss Dibeela, mechanic Henry Chagwiza says Zimbabweans are all too often exploited.
”We are not treated well. The people we work for want to use us as cheap labour,” Chagwiza said.
”They’re okay with medics, accountants and doctors but they are flooded with the others. They don’t want us now.”
Botswana’s government is also alert to the advantages of the troubles across the border, reaching out to professionals who have had enough of Zimbabwe.
Health Minister Sheila Tlou said that Zimbabweans were the number one target of a recruitment drive to find staff for three new hospitals opening in Botswana later this year.
”It is cheaper [to relocate the Zimbabweans] because they will be close to home. Hopefully they will find the pula much more attractive,” she said.
While Botswana is one of Africa’s wealthiest countries thanks to its large diamond reserves, the Zimabwean economy has been in meltdown for several years.
Inflation is the highest in the world at nearly 8 000%, the jobless rate is about 80% and wages barely cover the cost of the daily commute.
According to Chagwiza, who moved from Harare to Gaborone in 2004, most Zimbabweans would be only too happy to head back home if the economic situation there improved.
”If things get better in Zimbabwe, we will go back the same day,” he insists. – Sapa-AFP