Zimbabwe's Soaring Poverty

October 29, 2007
ZIMBABWE'S SOARING POVERTY

Zimbabwe, grappling with its worst ever economic crisis, has since 2000 when the fast-track land-reform began, relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly due to failure by resettled ZANU (PF) cronies to maintain production on former commercial farms. The poverty datum line or the estimated minimum level of income needed to secure the necessities of life has increased from Z$8 million in June 2007 (Z$16.7m in August) to Z$21.7 million in September. This is way above the average monthly salary for many Zimbabwean teachers, police constables, soldiers and shop floor workers, who often earn less than Z$4 million a month. The majority of workers are found in the agricultural sector where they are being paid less than Z$2 million a month (US$1 = Z$840,000 at the lucrative parallel market).

According to consumer watchdog, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, workers' salaries barely match the poverty datum line and put the wage-earners in the category of very poor. Life is getting harder for many Zimbabweans who struggle to survive amid a dire cocktail of food, electricity, water and drug shortages. With unemployment at 85% and year-on-year inflation at 7,982.1%, many families now eat one meal a day.

There is mounting evidence that Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth) was a major cause of urban poverty in the country which has reached alarming rates with an estimated two million urban dwellers requiring food aid this year. The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango), in its statement to mark the second anniversary of the controversial clean-up exercise, expressed concern over the rise in urban poverty.

"Exactly two years after the government initiated Operation Murambatsvina, non-governmental organisations have expressed concern over the unprecedented levels of urban poverty in Zimbabwe and renewed calls for increased action to revamp the country's social service delivery capacities.... Non-governmental organisations in the country have been battling to raise resources from the international community that has since expressed reservations with providing support to mitigate a man-made crisis such as the post-Murambatsvina urban poverty scenario," said Nango.

Nango blamed the government for failure to address urban poverty and for destroying the informal sector which used to be the source of income for many urbanites. "Nothing has been done by the government to effectively address the impoverishment of thousands of urban dwellers by Operation Murambatsvina. The destruction of the informal sector from which urbanites derived their livelihoods has the overall effect of reducing the standard of living in most households," said Nango. It added: "The terrain of urban poverty in Zimbabwe has many complexities, with HIV and Aids and economic recession playing a key role in pushing more and more people into the relentless cycle of poverty."

The government described the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities and an effort to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious diseases in urban areas. However, in a report written by Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, the executive director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the operation was a disastrous venture which violated international law and led to a serious humanitarian crisis. The report also described the actions of the government as "indiscriminate, unjustified and conducted without regard for human suffering".

Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands of people have lost jobs while the manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating below 30% of capacity.

When Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980 after an armed struggle, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was undoubtedly a hero of Africa's long drawn liberation struggle. His policy of national reconciliation attracted much applause both locally and on the international arena. Having inherited a strong economy, Zimbabweans hoped for a glorious future of rapid socio-economic and political development.

However, twenty-seven years with Robert Mugabe at the helm, the economy has gone into the doldrums as it seems his sense of integrity and even probity and commitment to the progress of the southern African country has changed. He stunned both observers and economic analysts in 2000 when he said: "I don't know who could have managed this economy better than me." This goes to prove that President Robert Mugabe began to imagine himself to be above reproach and began to trample on the rights of the people.

He recruited the war veterans, some of who were not even born at independence, as he employed all manner of intrigue and manipulation of the political process to remain in office. First he declared war on the opposition, particularly the Movement for Democratic Change and now those within his own ZANU (PF) opposed to his candidacy in the 2008 presidential election.

The past seven years have been traumatic for the people of Zimbabwe. Slowly but methodically, the hero of the Second Chimurenga has become a despot, who will stop at nothing just to satisfy his lust for power. The cruellest irony, though, is that in a country with rampant poverty and unemployment, almost everyone on the streets is technically a millionaire. In 1981, 72 Zimbabwean cents would buy one US dollar, but today one Zimdollar is actually worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper - offered in the supermarket in bulk for Z$1.5 million per pack. Most of the shelves are empty and there is almost nothing left to buy or eat.

From a self-sufficient middle-income country just ten years ago, Zimbabwe is today an impoverished low-income country where even the most basic services have collapsed. Hospitals and clinics barely function, the once revered education system can no longer offer full-time teaching or adequate accommodation for students at government universities.

Teachers, considered key informants and community leaders in rural areas, are being targeted on a regular basis. About 15% of Zimbabwean children remained out of school in 2000, a disproportionately high number of who were girls. The country's spiralling economic crisis causes many more children to stop going to school because their parents cannot afford the rising cost of fees, uniforms and books. National enrolment is down 30% since 2000, according to UNICEF, because parents are struggling just to feed their children, increasing numbers of who are forced to work, beg or turn to prostitution.

Because of the deepening economic and social crisis gripping Zimbabwe, the number of female students who are engaged in prostitution is increasing. In January 2006, tuition fees at government tertiary colleges were increased from between Z$6 million and Z$9 million per year to Z$71 million for engineering and natural sciences and Z$76 million for those taking science degree programmes, Z$66 million for arts and humanities students, after government support had been deducted. By the end of that year tuition fees averaged Z$120 million.

Both analysts and parents agreed that the government had lost its moral legitimacy by increasing tuition fees to levels that prohibit a majority of students from attaining professional academic education, a reversal of a fundamental tool for development.

October 17 is celebrated globally as World Poverty Day or International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. A number of events were held throughout Zimbabwe but the commemorations went mostly unnoticed by Zimbabweans engaged in the daily ordeal of standing in food queues. Poverty reduction is listed as one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), set at a world leaders' meeting in 2000, which should be achieved by 2015. However, with only eight years to go before the deadline, there is no sign of progress in this regard in Zimbabwe. Instead, the gains made in the early years of independence are crumbling with each New Year.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the UN-organised campaign against poverty (16 - 17 October), UN Millennium Campaign representative in Germany, Renée Ernst said, "We cannot enforce anything. Zimbabwe is a special case, it is a place I would almost equate with places engaged in war right now," Ernst said. "We can try and put pressure as the UN but I hope it's only a matter of time before a guy like him (Mugabe) stops his awful policies of abusing his people. Surely Zimbabwe is not doing its (MDG) work," she concluded.

The global body set eight millennium development goals to be reached by 2015. These are the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowerment of women; reducing child mortality; combating HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

Eighty per cent of Zimbabwe's 12-million people live below the poverty datum line and now even the wildlife find it difficult to survive because the wildlife management authorities have failed to maintain water pumps and other basic facilities. At this rate it looks Zimbabwe will be unable to achieve the UN MDGs.

The government has been adopting piecemeal measures to eradicate poverty and hunger. When the clampdown on prices was introduced in July, the public was made to understand that the government was embarking on the arbitrary move because of its determination to ease the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans and protect them from exploitation by greedy businesspeople. The way things have turned out shows that the publicly touted beneficiaries of the government's intervention are worse off than ever before and there seems to be no hurry or urgency on the part of the ZANU (PF) government to remedy its mistakes.

Now, just as before, President Robert Mugabe alleges that the country's worst-ever economic crisis was caused by Western sanctions and sabotage by white-controlled industry. But his critics point to a catalogue of controversial political decisions, including a seven-year programme of commercial land seizures that has slashed agricultural production as well as foreign investment and tourist confidence. The government continues to grab land although it declared in August 2003 that the exercise had been wound up.

Meanwhile, a number of small, medium and large commercial farms given to black farmers are lying fallow. Entire farms appear neglected, with grass growing in fields that were once filled with crops. Farming infrastructure is derelict, suggesting that it has been vandalised. Seven years after the war veterans killed at least twelve white farmers and hundreds of their black workers, the land reform programme has not produced the "dream harvests" that were predicted by its proponents. Instead, there is chaos: corruption in the ownership of farms, some of it featuring some of Mugabe's closest political allies.

The new farmers are unable to raise bank loans because their properties are formally owned by the government and they have no individual title deeds. Without loans, they cannot buy seed, fertiliser or farming equipment and many have given up trying to produce anything at all.

The land-reform controversy is not quite understood by a sizeable number of Africans both on the African continent and those living in the Diaspora. There is a feeling of "justice having been done" by grabbing white commercial farms. True and justifiable as this may sound, the question that is not brought into the open is who benefited from the land grab?

Several State-sponsored commissions of investigation have revealed that Mugabe's ministers, judges, military commanders and police commissioners as well as other ranking government authorities have acquired more than one farm each. Using marauding gangs of ZANU (PF) militants, military, police and government officials are leading the current attacks on the remaining white farmers.

Early this October, Masvingo Governor Willard Chiwewe was reported to have closed the only dairy farm in Chiredzi. The Governor is believed to already have five other farms in Masvingo province. He is alleged to have given the Alfords' farm to his daughter, who allegedly harassed the couple until they finally packed up and moved out.

The dairy was known by villagers from far a field for its lacto milk and yoghurt. Given the ongoing food shortages, the lacto was an affordable meal for many families that queued at the gates. The farm also produced about 1,000 litres of milk per month, and a crop of oranges, vegetable seed and high quality sugar cane. The surrounding community that relied on these products now joins the rest of Zimbabwe in search for milk, and other basic staple foods.

Ruling ZANU (PF) provincial chairman, retired Major Alex Mudavanhu seized a lucrative conservancy in Masvingo. Mudavanhu, who was accompanied by a group of war veterans, is reported to have stormed Swatsfontain Farm on October 6 claiming that the farm now belonged to him because he was the holder of a 99-year lease granted to him by President Robert Mugabe's government earlier this year. The farm, owned by a white commercial farmer, Ronny Sparrow, has a variety of wild animals among them lions, giraffes, impalas and buffaloes.

This is the trend all over Zimbabwe. Ten white farmers based in the Chegutu farming district, about 100 km west of Harare, appeared in court earlier this week for refusing to vacate their properties and growing crops on properties listed for compulsory acquisition. Under the Consequential Provisions Act, white farmers whose properties were listed for compulsory acquisition had to vacate their properties by 30 September or they would face prosecution.

Edward Mashiringwani, a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe deputy governor, is reported to have stormed Friedwall farm on October 17. He claims the government allocated the property, located 150 km north-west of Harare, to him. This is in contradiction to calls by the central bank to stop farm invasions. The RBZ governor, Gideon Gono is among a group of top government and ZANU (PF) officials agitating to put a stop to the on-going farm seizures.

It was reported that Vice President Joseph Msika at the end of September summoned Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantine Chiwengwa and ordered him to stop ongoing occupation of farms by senior army officials. Sources said the meeting between Msika and Chiwengwa was prompted by numerous reports of top army chefs evicting white farmers and blacks resettled under the controversial land-reform programme from their properties in the past few months. It also came against the backdrop of some fissures beginning to emerge within the ruling ZANU (PF) party over how to finalise the land redistribution programme.

Msika has been struggling to stamp his authority and enforce an order he issued to Lands and Land Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa in September to stop evictions of remaining white farmers. Mutasa has openly ignored Msika by insisting that white farmers who have been ordered to leave should vacate the farms or risk arrest.

In an incident reflecting growing disenchantment with land grabs by ZANU (PF) cronies, more than twenty people sustained serious injuries this month following violent clashes as war veterans, villagers, and ZANU (PF) supporters ganged up to block the eviction of a white farmer by militias aligned to a top ruling party official in Zimbabwe's rich eastern farming district of Burma Valley.

It was reported that Heather Guild, who owns Mapetu Farm, is facing eviction from Fungai Chaeruka, a ZANU (PF) official appointed to head Mutare City Council following the dismissal of an opposition-led council in 2005.

The disruption of farming activities on the remaining white farms that produced the bulk of the country's food needs has resulted in a quarter of Zimbabwe's 12 million population requiring food handouts from international food agencies. Largely because of these disruptions, Zimbabwe is currently suffering from a cycle of malnourishment and disease, as well as a slump in agricultural production that has led to continued food insecurity.

For example, most families of Harare's nearly two million residents were surviving on one meal a day and malnutrition is on the rise in the Zimbabwean capital, a city nutritionist said on October 9. City nutrition specialist Clare Zunguza told Parliament's Special Committee on Health and Child Welfare that most families were having only one meal a day due to shortages of food or prohibitive costs when it is available in shops.

"Most families are not eating anything in the morning and afternoon and only having one meal in the evening hence malnutrition is now prevalent in Harare," she said. Chronic malnutrition had become common among children with at least 30% of those under the age of five malnourished. HIV and AIDS patients were not being spared with three quarters of families headed by chronically ill parents reported to be food insecure, said Zunguza,

The disclosure of severe food shortages and rising malnutrition in Harare comes hard on the heels of the September warning by the United States-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) that up to 40% of Zimbabwe's rural population will need urgent food aid between October and next March to avert starvation. FEWSNET warned of massive food insecurity in the south and west of the country as well as in urban areas during the next six months unless the government improved its maize import plan.

The cash-strapped Harare government has said it will this year import 400,000 tonnes of maize from Malawi and a further 200,000 tonnes from Tanzania to cover the national shortfall. However, a serious shortage of foreign currency is hampering efforts to import food, forcing the ZANU (PF) government to resort to barter trade to secure maize supplies from Malawi.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), Zimbabwe's food security situation has reached critical levels and must be dealt with urgently to save thousands of villagers from starvation. WFP director in Zimbabwe, Kevin Farrell, described the situation especially in the country's hunger-prone southern Matabeleland provinces as disturbing. Farrell was speaking at a ceremony in Harare in September to receive US$3.3 million donated by Canada to assist the organisation's food relief operations.

"I visited some areas in the southern parts of the country and the situation there is acutely serious. The need is most pronounced in Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North, where the villagers did not harvest anything," said Farrell.

In August, the WFP appealed for US$118 million to buy food for starving Zimbabweans over the next eight months. The food relief agency says it already had 138,000 tonnes of food but still needed another 180,000 tonnes to distribute to about three million Zimbabweans until the next harvest next April.

After creating conditions for Zimbabweans to live in abject poverty, it is heart-rending to think a supposedly caring government is denying food to villagers. Hungry villagers gathered at Rata growth point in Mwenezi district in Masvingo were on October 23 told by ZANU (PF) officials and members of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) that they would not get any assistance because they supported the main opposition faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Allegations of the politicisation of food aid ahead of elections are not new. Although Mugabe has personally denied the allegations, one of his supporters, Chief Fortune Charumbira, is on record as having told government officials in Masvingo earlier this year to deny food aid to those linked to the MDC, alleging that the opposition supporters were biting the hand that feeds them.

What many Zimbabweans expected was that once the war of liberation was won ordinary people were anxious to develop the country to its full potential, namely self-sufficiency in food, availability of jobs, roads, hospitals, clinics, schools, universities, technical colleges, houses, a free press and democracy. Most of these aspirations have not been achieved.

What once was the breadbasket of southern Africa cannot now feed itself. The country is a pale shadow of its former self after the chaotic land reforms. Under ZANU (PF), Zimbabwe has declined from being one of Africa's most vibrant economies to being a classical African basket case surviving on food handouts from international relief agencies.

If humanity were to distribute wealth more evenly, then it would have led to fewer people living in poverty, more consumers and greater demand for products and services.

The rapid erosion of people's disposable incomes in the past few years has become the major talking point as Zimbabwe's economic maladies continue without any sign the government has any clue as to how to stem that haemorrhage. For many young people in Zimbabwe, the frustration has come from knowledge of how their contemporaries are living in neighbouring countries, such as Botswana and South Africa. The flood of Zimbabweans escaping poverty is unprecedented for a country endowed with abundant natural resources.

What kind of a national liberator is that who kills the human spirit to levels where even primary school children know their parents are struggling to put food on the table and to send them to school?