Posted on 05/07/2006 11:41:46 PM PDT by MadIvan
Zimbabweans are speaking out with candour against the Government as the country descends further into economic chaos
WITH his torn shirt and tattered trousers held up by a piece of string, Barons Chikamba is an unlikely millionaire.
His life is a daily struggle despite the seemingly astronomical prices that he charges for even a short hop in the battered car that he uses to ferry visitors around Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
Even his lowest fare is more than a million Zimbabwean dollars. It may sound a lot, but in a country where even the official rate of inflation is nearly 1,000 per cent — by far the highest for a country not at war — it is really less than £6.
Visitors arriving at Harare’s smart, modernistic airport quickly become millionaires simply by changing $10 at the official rate of Z$101,000 (55p) to the US dollar. The black market rate is roughly double that. “Yes, I am a millionaire — a millionaire who can afford nothing at all,” Mr Chikamba says. “Zimbabweans are all millionaires today.
We are a country of millionaires, but it goes nowhere and no one has anything.”
Mr Chikamba chuckles at the thought, but for him and millions like him, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation is no joke. Last week the basket of essential basics that an average lowincome family needs for survival rocketed to Z$41 million a month in a country where more than 60 per cent of the workforce is jobless and others earn as little as Z$4 million a month.
With the highest denomination banknote, Z$50,000, it can take almost as long as a taxi journey itself to pay the fare.
That is nothing, however, compared with eating out. A takeaway chicken and chips cost The Times Z$1.8 million last week. A curry with friends at a down-market Indian restaurant came to Z$13.6 million.
When restaurant bills arrive, people sit like Las Vegas high-rollers with great stacks of money in the middle of the table. “You have to add on another half hour to allow for the restaurant to count the money,” an Indian businessman said. “I went to pay some local taxes the other day and it took over an hour for them to count out the Z$41 million I owed. It’s crazy.”
That explains why some of the hottest commodities in Zimbabwe today are money-counting machines. State-run newspapers are full of advertisements for heavy-duty banknote counters made in Japan or Singapore. They range in price from Z$345 million to Z$1.2 billion. One businessman said that he had stopped using a calculator because it simply could not deal with the number of zeros, and had reverted to using an old slide rule.
Zimbabwe’s smallest denomination banknote is Z$500. That is a fraction of the price of a roll of lavatory paper at Z$150,000, leading to inevitable jokes about how to express one’s point of view of Robert Mugabe’s regime.
Supermarkets post new prices daily. Items such as bags of sugar or rice have layers of price tags stuck one on top of another. Peel them back and it is possible to trace the increases, which can be as high as 80 per cent in a week. People stand in shops with two bags, one full of money, one with a handful of food. At one of the favourite watering holes for the dwindling number of expats, a white man walked in and slammed a brick on the table. He had just bought 15 of them for some repair work at a cost of Z$300,000. “The bloody house only cost me Z$200,000 in 1990 — and it has a swimming pool and tennis court,” he shouted.
Zimbabwe’s crisis transcended racial divisions long ago, and his statement set off a round of comparisons from the mixed-race crowd. One man related how a new battery for his car now costs about Z$200,000, more than the car did when he bought it for Z$140,000 in the late 1990s.
Stroking his stubble, an Asian hotelier lamented that he could not afford razor blades at Z$15 million for a packet of three. “Bugger it, I won’t shave; who cares any more?” he shrugged.
As ever in Mr Mugabe’s impoverished fiefdom, it is the poorest people who pay the highest price. “People now have to shop on a daily basis because they cannot afford more than a few meagre items, and they get confused with all the money,” Otilia Rusere, 37, who scrapes a living as a street vendor, said.
By 5am the streets of Harare are full of people walking to work. “Many people cannot afford public transport, so everyone is footing it,” said Rudo Tsikira, whose rent for her one-room dwelling has soared to Z$2 million a month.
On Sunday mornings pensioners, black and white, can be seen buying one egg and two tomatoes, and a quarter loaf of bread for a rare treat — a cooked breakfast.
The grand colonial Harare Club started locking its library long ago because members were stealing books and newspapers and selling them to raise a little extra cash.
Fees tripled last month in state hospitals, with basic consultations increasing from Z$300,000 to more than Z$1 million. Private hospitals, doctors and clinics doubled their fees. Last week a couple expecting a baby in a private clinic had to pay for the delivery in advance. They turned up with a large suitcase stuffed with money. “People thought we were checking in,” joked the father-to-be.
The cost of dying is so high that the poor are reportedly burying their relatives in fields at night. Only condoms, which cost $Z300 because they are heavily subsidised by the international community, seem inflation-proof.
With the currency worth less each day, a bartering system is taking hold. Farm labourers prefer to be paid in produce, which will keep its price and can be easily swapped. In cities, people exchange personal items, such as CDs, for food.
The country’s descent into economic chaos came after violent land seizures led to a dramatic drop in production. Exports plummeted. Foreign investment dried up. The Government sought to hide its problems by taking out foreign loans that it could not service, and printing money. The inflation rate is still spiralling upwards, but Mr Mugabe appears oblivious.
He has a simple remedy to the problem — printing more money. To ensure that the army, police and civil servants are paid, the Central Bank has said that it will print another Z$60 trillion in Z$50,000 notes. The country does not have the capacity to print so many notes, but Mr Mugabe refuses to have larger ones because that would be “inflationary”.
Instead, Zimbabwe, once one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, will have to sub- contract some of the printing to neighbouring states, who will demand payment in precious hard currency, compounding the crisis.
“We are rapidly approaching the point of meltdown,” said John Robertson, an independent economist. “It simply cannot go on, and the Government will be forced to admit it has failed. Economics may end up doing what politics has failed to do.”
He said that until now the worst effects had been partially offset by remittances from the four million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population, living outside the country.
There are signs that ordinary people are near to breaking point. Despite the ubiquitous security services, they speak their minds with a candour unimaginable even a few years ago. No one has a good word to say about the Government.
Last week more than 100 women protesting against massive increases in school fees were arrested in Bulawayo. In Harare about 50 students who could not afford the final term’s fees were also arrested and detained over the weekend.
Zimbabwe’s schools reopen tomorrow and huge absenteeism is expected after many doubled fees that now range between Z$20 million and Z$100 million a term.
“There is no sector of society unaffected by this crisis,” said Barnabus Mangodla, of the Combined Harare Residents’ Association, a lobby group.
“We are living on a time bomb, and there comes a point when people have nothing left, that they no longer care about repression.”
Try being a young professional making between 50k and 75k and buying a starter home in the Northeast. At least half a mil for a 2000 sq ft. 3 br 1.5 ba. home.
what you describe is negative blowback of a fairly strong economy
do folks expect you to rent till you have 200K for the downpayment?
it's tough
Right now, I rent well below what I can afford rent-wise. I have some solid down-payment money saved already and w/ a VA loan (I'm a vet), I can escape points, mortgage insurance and some of the other b.s.. But, and this is a big but, taxes and the cost of property would make the mortgage payments unaffordable.
With maintenance, taxes, and mortgage interest, I've never thought that home-ownership is this great economic panacea (though I may be wrong) and that in some instances, it may be wiser to rent and invest my savings than to sink all of my assets in a home.
Home ownership beyond basics is lifestyle
One my faves too! I'm glad that he and Jack Williamson are still around writing their enormous hearts out!
P.S. I was thinking specifically of 'The Midas Plague'.
The next time I'm up in Chicago, I'm tempted to arrange a meeting with him, and pick his brain.....
So, are we to assume that corrupt governments would fall sooner if remittances were stopped? I think Mexican leaders have that fear.
Is there any right leaning generals (ala Pinochet) in that country the CIA could back to take Mugabe down???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.