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Zimbabwe: Poor Millionaires
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION
24 March 2008
Posted to the web 25 March 2008
Mangoa Mosota
Nairobi
Zimbabwe is fast becoming a joke gone too far. What would you say of a country where people carry money in sacks just to buy groceries? What we would take for granted like a piece of ripe banana that costs Sh10 on the streets of Nairobi and even less with bargaining is currently going for Zim$1 million (Sh2,000). A loaf of bread, when available, costs about Zim$5 million (Sh10,000).
It is a land where essential commodities are so scarce that cooking oil is traded by the tablespoon, in the markets and in some residential estates.
In Zimbabwe shoppers might need to carry such amounts of money to buy groceries.
Recently I was in Rhodesia, as the country was once known, for five days and realised that indeed Kenya is a small heaven, a Canaan of sorts.
"Are you shocked? Hapa ni Harare. Huko Nairobi. Maisha hapa ni ngumu kuliko ulivyo dhania," my host, a fellow Kenyan, told me. (We are in Harare. You are not in Nairobi. Life here is more difficult than you might have thought.)
This was after our failure to find soft drinks in a supermarket in Harare, the capital city. My friend Jeff has lived in Zimbabwe for the last 10 years. He works as an IT expert, and like all workers in Zimbabwe, he is paid in millions.
We were in the house when Jeff got a call from a colleague that there was fuel at petrol station in town, and we rushed there.
We found a queue about half a kilometre long, and the price of a litre of petrol had shot up by 50 per cent in one hour. We gave up and drove back.
Interestingly, Zimbabweans blame their President Robert Mugabe for the predicament they find themselves in, but still love him.
I met a shop attendant, Emily Sithole, who refers to the 84-year-old strongman as "the old man," someone with godlike powers and all-too-human failings. It's no wonder that Bob, as he is fondly referred to by the locals, is not about to let go the reins of power.
Recently, he declared that his ruling party Zanu-PF would make mince meat of his opponents in the General Election scheduled for Saturday. Mugabe said the country would not plunge into the post-poll skirmishes like Kenya did.
Crazy life
However, he failed to tell the world the bizarre but laughable lives his countrymen have to contend with daily as a result of his despotic 28-year rule.
With a population of close to 13 million people, unemployment at 80 per cent, and 45 per cent of this populace malnourished - concocted with a surreal inflation of 100, 000 per cent (the highest in the world), life in Zimbabwe is a nightmare.
Supporters of the ruling party, Zanu-PF, regard the polls as a blessing, though a fleeting one. At rallies, they have been rewarded for their attendance with maize flour and sugar -essentials that are rare in the denuded groceries.
A fortnight ago, Mugabe pacified the restive army rank-and-file with a windfall pay raise. But these sops are secondary to his more muscular stratagems. In past elections, youth brigades were let loose on political opponents, and such patterns of intimidation continue.
Shortage of hard currency and its insignificant value creates a crazy life.
A small trip for medicine for common cold turned into a nightmare recently. There was no medicine in five of the shops I visited. Jeff suggested we purchase lemons in a market to lessen the pain in my throat. A kilo of the precious fruit was Zim$2 million (Sh4,000).
Late last year, an ambitious plan by the Government to recruit thousands of new police officers ahead of this month's elections virtually collapsed after it found no takers among hordes of school leavers roaming the streets.
The police force, hit hard by massive resignations and desertions over poor pay and poor working conditions over the past eight years, is struggling to maintain adequate staff levels.
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Despite an aggressive recruitment drive launched late last year, the law enforcement agency failed to meet a target of 27,000 new recruits.
Mozambique's power utility in January suspended supplies to Zimbabwe over unpaid debt. The firm switched off supplies to Zimbabwe after it failed to clear an outstanding Sh1.6 billion debt that was due last December.
And in November last year, teachers in rural areas were forced to contribute money towards the hosting of a Zanu-PF congress that was held in December.
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