Mugabe continues to display a mastery of the illogical.

In his latest move, brought about by the effect of having his “patience stretched to the limit”, he has ordered companies to produce invoices that reflect the fact that they have bought their product at the official rate. Mugabe has turned the whole country in criminals by running down the economy to the point where the vast majority of businesses and individuals source their foreign currency requirements on the black market, more politely known as the parallel market.

His latest decision will force more company closures and stocks will disappear off the shelves again.

Mugabe’s policy is not aimed at shielding the populace from a profit hungry capitalist economy.

On the contrary, Mugabe’s latest salvo is aimed at punishing those who dare to even hint, through their actions, that they are working against him. In his mind and ever since Christopher Dell predicted the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy, price increments are a deliberate attempt to effect regime change. Such is his siege mentality. He will, as a result, go to any lengths to punish those who he see as working actively against him.

A few examples come to mind: the personal humiliation of Nbabiningi Sithole, and Pius Ncube, the incarcerations of Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku, the collective punishment of the people of Matabeleland and Midlands, the destructive orgy of Operation Murambatsvina and the punishment of the white farmers who he blames for his referendum defeat.

You see, Mugabe can be a perfect gentleman when you leave him alone and do not threaten his interests. Ask any white farmer before 2000; they made him the patron of everything from cricket to horse racing. Ask any resident of Mashonaland; he did not punish them for anything until they started voting MDC.

As for Edison Zvobgo, may he rest in peace; he did not ostracise and break him until he proved himself unwilling to toe the line.

So Zimbabweans must brace themselves for a new round of shortages. Hunger and starvation is about to get even worse.

Mugabe’s limited agenda now consists of two things: to die in office and to be remembered as the “terrifier of the white man, at home and abroad”.

In order to die in office, he will destroy anything that remotely looks like a threat despite the consequences to the country. He has seen what his price blitz did to the people and he is about to serve us another round of misery. What does he care, when he will be safely dead and buried? The country can sort itself out long after he is gone.

This man must face justice, not compromise. His headaches and stomach ulcers must remain with him until his last breath and they must be caused by the knowledge that those who believe in justice will pursue him and are pursuing him until he is held accountable. We cannot allow him to laugh all the way to his grave. He must know the same fear that his victims have known through all the years of independence.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, food shortages, price controls, economy, inflation, parallel market, black market, forex, foreign currency, Mugabe, Zanu PF

[This article is being mailed to our subscribers today. Click here to subscribe to the Sokwanele mailing list.]

Those who have not been exposed to Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation may find it difficult to comprehend the intensity of the suffering it causes to the country’s citizens. What difference does it make to people’s everyday lives? To say that inflation has become a matter of life and death for many, may sound like an exaggeration to readers outside Zimbabwe. But that is the tragic reality as this real life story illustrates. Inflation is a direct cause of incredible stress and hardship in many Zimbabwean lives.

The names in this article have been changed to protect the identity of our interviewee and people around him, but all the other details are exactly as provided to our reporter.

Mr Bernard Keswa is 85 years of age. The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) employed Mr Keswa for most of his working life. His pension from the NRZ amounts to a paltry 33,000 Zimbabwe dollars plus some loose change. This income will not even buy him the lowest denomination postage stamp available in Zimbabwe.

To get the measure of this sum, consider that a pound sterling now equates to something in excess of a million Zimbabwe dollars. In other words our 85-year-old pensioner receives the equivalent of a tiny fraction of one pound a month to live on. Of course it is ludicrous. In fact it is an insult to Mr Keswa, a man who has worked hard all his life, deprived now of a dignified old age. 33,000 Zimbabwe dollars will not even provide a single one-way ride into town in an emergency taxi (public transport). (At the time of speaking to Mr Keswa an emergency taxi trip cost 150,000 dollars, but the fare increases almost daily).

The old Rhodesian Railways (precursor to the NRZ) was one of the country’s major employers and a rock-solid financial institution under colonial rule. It provided financial security to employees and pensioners alike and was much respected for that. But uncontrolled inflation and gross mismanagement of the national economy over nearly a decade have eroded pensions (and not just of railway employees) to the point at which they are now effectively worthless. Mr Keswa is a tragic example of this trend: he is only one among hundreds of thousands. And remember, there is no social security network in Zimbabwe to provide even the basics like food, shelter, medicine, water and electricity.

Out of his paltry 33,000 Zimbabwe dollars, Mr Bernard Keswa is expected to feed, educate, clothe, and accommodate his four grand-children (Beatrice[15], Brian[11], Belinda[8] and Beater[5] ) whose parents died of AIDS in 2005. Imagine the stress that comes with the responsibility of feeding four vulnerable children on an income that will not buy a postage stamp.

As a diabetic, Mr Keswa also has to provide himself with a special diet. This is an extremely difficult task: due to the current food shortages in Zimbabwe Mr Keswa can no longer even afford a simple ordinary breakfast. It is impossible for him to find food like the brown rice that forms part of a special diet for diabetics, and even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to afford to buy it.

Mr Keswa said that finding flour or bread is like looking for snowballs in the Sahara. To eke out his meager supplies during the times he has no alternative sources of food or support, Mr Keswa mixes small amounts of mealie-meal, sugar and water into a stiff paste. He then rolls the paste into small balls and boils them in water. The cooked product is called “maqhebelengwana”, and is usually eaten accompanied by a cup of tea, but Mr Keswa says it has been a long time since he has had tealeaves and sugar in his cupboard.

Mr Keswa owns a four-roomed house in Luveve, a high-density suburb on the western side of Bulawayo. He bought the house during the “good old days” when the NRZ floated a rent-to-buy scheme for its workers. Now two rooms leased to a well-mannered couple provide Mr Keswa with a modest monthly rental that does no more than pay for electricity, water and city council rates. But at least he has a roof over his head: many poverty-stricken pensioners had their fragile homes destroyed by the government during Operation Murambatsvina. Mr Keswa, as hard as it may be to believe it, is lucky.

The reality is that the Roman Catholic Church is Mr Keswa’s salvation.

Through its philanthropic programme called the St Vincent’s Society for the Very Poor [SVP], a society that looks after the most needy in the community, Mr Keswa receives regular handouts of sugar beans and mealie meal. Though the handouts arrive with long intervals between them (these were never intended to provide more than a food supplement for the very poor) they go a long way towards keeping extreme hunger from his door.

The SVP has, until recently when certain members of the Luveve Community took over, also been providing the funds to educate Mr Keswa’s four grand-children. And the church has managed to provide him with clothes to wear for a number of years.

Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organisation that assists the elderly, has given Mr Keswa supplements of sorghum, grain and bulgar. These have been an essential part of his diabetic diet.

Mr Keswa’s story highlights the charitable spirit of the community he lives in because, with their help, he has over the past five years been able to find ways of coping with his special dietary requirements despite the extreme difficulties presented by hyper-inflation and poverty.

Mr Keswa makes sadza made from ground sorghum (mhunga). This mhunga, or milo as it is also called, is brown in colour and is a delicacy for Shona traditionalists. (It is served in wooden utensils during holy ceremonies (zvirango zvinoera)). Mhunga’s metabolisable energy content is about 5-10% lower than maize, but it has a protein content that is 10-12% higher.

Mr Kaswa takes an extra precaution of his own: including garlic onion in vegetables and other dishes is now an ingrained habit because, as he says,

“It keeps me away from Dr Gloria’s vital medical check ups. It also saves me the humiliation of having to kneel down before my benefactors begging for money to pay for Dr Gloria’s check ups”.

The responsibility Mr Keswa has for his four young grandchildren means that he is keenly aware that he has to do all he can to stay healthy. Without him, they become mere numbers in the nation’s growing AIDS-orphan statistics.

As if all this was not enough, Mr Keswa also has heart problems, resulting in the occasional serious heart murmur. For someone living altogether on charity and, as the church would say, by the grace of God, it is nothing short of a miracle that to date he has managed to buy the prescribed drugs which come at a cost of 7.4 million Zimbabwean dollars. (Remember, his railway pension is 33,000 dollars.)

In April this year 85-year-old Mr Keswa suffered a mild stroke that badly affected his speech and left his mouth looking twisted. All of his dining, bedroom and lounge furniture was sold to pay the doctor’s consultation fees, hospital bedding, medicine and physiotherapy costs.

Within inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe Mr Keswa is one of the fortunate few whom friends, the church and other charitable bodies have kept alive. The government which has created the conditions leading to his sorry predicament, provides him with nothing whatsoever for his old age.

Were there even a semblance of democracy and free choice in Zimbabwe, it goes without saying that this government would have been shown the door many, many years ago.

[This article is being mailed to our subscribers today. Click here to subscribe to the Sokwanele mailing list.]

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, pensioner, elderly, diabetic, elderly, poverty, hyperinflation, food shortages, healthcare, Catholic, church

Inflation is soaring and business is taking every advantage of the perceived reduction in the intimidatory tactics of the price control authorities.

Some pundits place month on month inflation at over 25 000 % and this tends to be backed up by the PDL figures which have accelerated at a level just below this.

At the same time, the President has again threatened companies who, he claims, are sabotaging the economy.

Furthermore the National Incomes and Pricing Commission has said it will not approve price proposals from businesses which factor in parallel market foreign currency rates in their costs. It should be pointed out that this is the only basis by which a business can cost and what the commission is insinuating is that the official bank rate of 30 000 to the USD be used. The USD is currently trading closer to 2 million to 1 and this clearly illustrates the dilemma for business leaders who risk jail sentences for non compliance.

Retail outlets continue to retrench workers and some operations are planning to close country wide branches due to the lack of locally produced goods made by factories which cannot afford to operate at a loss. Power outages have increased in the last week as the local power utility experiences cuts in supplementary supplies from neighboring countries due to no payment of arrears.

Click here to see all posts in the Business Watch series

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Business Watch, economy, inflation, currency, forex

This image from a protest by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) held last week in Harare. More on our Flickr account.

Riot police attacked a group of NCA members who had gathered for a demonstration on 2nd street in Harare on Tuesday, and injured 40 of them. The NCA reported that approximately 400 members had come to protest against Constitutional Amendment 18 Bill, which passed in parliament earlier this month. The group intended to march peacefully to the parliament building, but they were rounded up at Herald House where the police took turns beating participants. (Via SW Radio Africa)

This entry was included in our latest edition of Zimbabwe Election Watch. View the article here.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, protest, NCA, police brutality, human rights, demonstration, Zimbabwe Republic Police, ZRP

Telcoms is now a problem due to power shortages to add to the list of woes. Faults are now beginning to surface and seroiously effect business which is staggering in an already testing environment. Due to extended power outages, NetOne has resorted to standby generators which now cannot be used because of shortage of Diesel. The result is they simply shut-down whole telphone exchanges. Mweb (Internet provider) has also advised that there will be no internet surfing at night due to the expense of running generators.

Some exporting companies have invested huge summs of money into auxilliary power supplies on the basis that they can source fuel privately. This is necessary to protect their hard won exports orders. Deals are being struck with the state power utility to pay for power in hard currency. This is another desperate measure being employed as an option to total shutdown.

Currency is trading as high as 1,6 million to the USD and the Reserve Bank continues to buy on the black market forcing rates even higher.

Click here to see all posts in the Business Watch series

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Business Watch, economy, inflation, Telcoms, ISP, Internet Service Providers, currency, forex

Via the Open Society Institute:

More information here on what you can do to help. Get involved.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Soros Foundation

Basic hospital requirements are available only erratically now in Zimbabwe. People are dying because of the lack of drips, particularly with the upsurge in water borne diseases, diarrhoea. Re-read this blog I posted last week describing one hospital experience that made the blood in my veins turn cold. We’re hearing reports now that the elite Zanu PF are putting themselves first in the queue for ARV supplies. In Bulawayo, ARVs are not being distributed at all. Countrywide no new HIV patients are being accepted into the treatment system.

In the course of talking about this nightmarish healthcare situation with a medical friend of mine he told me that recently the Zimbabwe Medical Association had met to elect a new president. This had apparently resulted in more political interference from the Zanu PF government. Apparently they flew in a large contingency of army and police doctors to swing the vote to have one of their own elected as president. Their objective, my friend said, wasn’t necessarily about control of the ZMA, and more about being in a position to silence Doctors for Human Rights.

In light of what he said, I subsequently read that last week the 58th General Assembly of the World Medical Association (WMA) adopted a hardline resolution against Zimbabwean government which included calling on all its affiliated medical organisations to “Engage with the Zimbabwean Medical Association (ZiMA) to ensure the autonomy of the medical profession in Zimbabwe“. It also noted:

“Information and reports of systematic and repeated violations of human rights, interference with the right to health in Zimbabwe, failure to provide resources essential for provision of basic health care, declining health status of Zimbabweans, dual loyalties and threats to health care workers striving to maintain clinical independence, denial of access to health care for persons deemed to be associated with opposition political parties and escalating state torture”.

The WMA called on medical associations to publicly denounce all human rights abuses and violations of the right to health in Zimbabwe. And “It also noted the need to actively protect physicians who are threatened or intimidated for actions which are part of their ethical and professional obligations” (via health-e.org).

We’re dying, and the government focuses on hiding and covering up human rights abuses. It’s incredible.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, health care, hospital, World Medical Association, Zimbabwe Medical Association, ZiMA, WMA, HIV, ARV

The police and the elite continue to benefit from the price slashing effect on goods.

This week one of our activists witnessed police at a local cement company loading hundreds of bags of cement. We did some research and areaware that there are no current building projects being undertaken by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, so that leaves us with the belief that the cement is destined for re-sale on the black market.

Another of our activists witnessed the police loading tons of sugar.

The police are paid so little they are now forced into criminal activities, encouraged by their superiors.

Government-owned bread producers are able to bring in flour at bank rate, so no prizes for who is making massive profits, especially on super white loaves.

Carcass permits for beasts in the rural areas are being handed out with little restriction: the result; a thriving black market for meat.

Price controls are good for patronage, but very bad for the people.

The questions we’re left asking ourselves is, is this sustainable until elections?

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, economy, price controls, inflation, black market, corruption, Zimbabwe Republic Police