By Lloyd Takawira Features writer
“I have been in this queue since 14:00 hrs now it’s 17:00hrs. The Zupco Buses are not coming. I stay in Chitungwiza St Mary’s ” narrates Munashe a student at PACE college Harare CBD.
Restless Zimbabweans bearing the daily brazen life characterized by the biting economic malice find themselves having to battle with a number of tussles each day.
Zimbabweans have seen it all. From cash to cooking oil shortages. From transport to mealie meal problems. The list is endless.
Soliloquizing to himself is Mr Mudare who is just counting some coins which he has withdrawn from an Ecocash agent in the downtown area Harare CBD.
A light joke ensued to which I discovered the intensity of resentment from Mr Mudare., Kutengeserwa Mari yangu heee “now I’m forced to buy my hard-earned cash ” retorted the charged Mdara Mudare .
As if not all, the government is possessed with the demon of statutes gazetted Statutory Instrument 37 of 2020
According to the Statutory Instrument, the minimum wage for a gardener in Zimbabwe is now ZWL$160 per month. The minimum wage for a cook or housekeeper (informally referred to as a maid) is now ZWL$168.48 per month. A childminder, on the other hand, is to earn a minimum of ZWL$179.00 while a disabled/aged minder is to earn a minimum wage of $189.70 per month.
To illustrate how dire the situation is for workers in Zimbabwe, the country’s examinations body, ZIMSEC hiked examination fees for Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations.
A paltry ZW $160, what will it buy. It confirms that the richer will continue amassing wealth at the sweat of the poor.
The “Ego contests” by our political leaders continue unabated. Now a bucket of maize is now costing between the US $7 to the US $8.
Pitifully to say, wages both in the private and public sector have remained stagnant.
While the rumours mill has been going around that restive surrogates have deployed the dreaded military intelligence into the communities for fear of unrest.
True to their fear. Indeed the wheels are coming off.
Summed up by Professor Stephen Chan that:
“The unrest in the Zimbabwean ruling party youth wing and perceived unrest in the army is not because of plots.
It’s because living conditions in places like Chitungwiza and Epworth keep getting worse while living conditions in Borrowdale Brook inexplicably keep getting better”.
Even senior civil servants like the Prosecutor General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi could not stomach it.
In his own admission, Hodzi acknowledged that cartels have captured everything from political parties to the very organization that is charged to fight graft (ZACC) itself the police and even the army.
Truth be told self-introspection from the country’s political leaders is needed.
An un-refutable fact is that the economic hyperinflationary bite has been biting the ordinary citizen in Mufakose or Mutapa flats in Gweru .
A recent report on Zimbabwe by Alexander H. Noyes a political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation postulated that :
” Little Has Changed in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe In short, it’s bleak “. read part of the report
The RAND study further postulated that “Politics dictates and distorts economics” in Zimbabwe.
“Politics and economics are inextricably linked in Zimbabwe and the country will be unable to recover unless the two sectors are resolved “.
“Genuine reforms would go a long way toward putting Zimbabwe on a democratic path, lessening high levels of political polarization, and repairing the collapsing economy”
An inexactitude before us is that the wheels are coming off. Unless the politics right size itself we are headed for more long queues.
