[Civsoc-mw] {Disarmed} FW: High risk of chaos in Zimbabwe

Mon Oct 21 15:59:56 CAT 2019

Pathetic indeed.

On Thu, 17 Oct 2019, 22:08 , <cammack at mweb.co.za> wrote:

> From a mzungu who has been writing about Zim for a long time… who lives
> not far from Harare, and puts out a newsletter about her family and
> neighbours…. You get a sense of what it is like living there… D
>
>
>
> *From:* Cathy Buckle <cbuckle.zim at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* 17 October 2019 14:44
>
> *Subject:* High risk of chaos in Zimbabwe
>
>
>
> Dear Family and Friends,
> Everything’s upside down in Zimbabwe this October. Usually known as
> suicide month because of extremely high temperatures, the blistering heat
> has yet to take hold this summer. Instead of shorts, T shirts and slip
> slops this mid October we’re back in jackets and jerseys until midday in my
> home town. Every day high winds rip the new fruit off plum and apple trees
> and strip the purple flowers off the Jacaranda trees and every night the
> temperatures drop to ten degrees Celsius or less. The summer birds are back
> in our gardens: red winged Louries, paradise Flycatchers and the beautiful
> ghost bird (grey headed bush Shrike) who spends most days being mobbed by
> other birds as it raids nests and snatches eggs.  So far there’s no sign of
> the Abdim’s Storks whose appearance usually signals the arrival of rain and
> while we wait for them, and the rain, we also wait for something to happen
> in Zimbabwe as every day we move closer to a state of complete paralysis.
>
> For eight months, with lowered eyes and gritted teeth, we have watched the
> Zimbabwe government turn us into a nation of paupers. In a single day in
> February 2019 when they converted all our US dollars in banks, savings and
> pensions into Zimbabwe dollars they condemned 95% of the population to
> poverty. What had been one hundred US dollars was now called Zimbabwe
> dollars and worth only forty US dollars; eight months later that one
> hundred dollars in the bank or on the pay slip is only worth six US
> dollars. ‘Everything is upside down’ is the phrase on the streets because
> the real problem is that the prices of everything we buy is pegged to the
> US dollar exchange rate  so prices go up every day but salaries and wages
> don’t.
>
> A loaf of bread was ninety cents in January, now it’s almost sixteen
> dollars;  a tin of baked beans has gone from eighty cents to eleven
> dollars; sugar from two to forty dollars and maize meal from eight to
> seventy dollars in the past eight months. The price of electricity
> increased by 580% last week, going from three to twenty dollars per
> kilowatt hour. A litre of fuel was $1.31 in January, today it’s $18.60. It
> now costs almost one thousand dollars to fill a standard sixty litre car
> fuel tank.  It’s no good saying oh but that’s only sixty five US dollars,
> the fact is that 95% of the population don’t have or earn in US dollars and
> for them, this money, food, medicine, fuel and electricity crisis is a
> silent death sentence, gathering victims by the day.
>
> Zimbabwe’s economy is forecast to shrink by 6% this year and retailers say
> their sales have dropped by 50% in the last few months. A survey last week
> showed that food prices in Zimbabwe are 50% more than in South Africa. The
> sad fact that we still import most of our food from South Africa twenty
> years after the Zimbabwe government seized all commercial farms, continues
> to be lost in the propaganda, ignored by the media. Connecting the dots
> just isn’t happening at home but we wonder if our neighbouring countries
> are watching our freefall and preparing for the inevitable influx under
> their border fences.
>
> Meeting a friend this week whose salary was US$250 in February, he should
> now be taking home Z$$3,875 if his pay was being converted at the current
> bank exchange rate. It’s not of course and he’s only actually getting Z$600
> a month (US$40). In eight months his salary has gone down by eighty percent
> leaving him and his family in dire straits. It took one relation with
> persistent diarrhoea and his month’s salary was depleted in a day. Doctor’s
> consultation fee, antibiotics and simple medication left a bill Z$550. “I
> don’t know what to do next” he said and there was no answer, not for him or
> literally millions of others in exactly this same situation. In Zimbabwe’s
> last economic collapse in 2008 people went and worked in neighbouring
> countries to survive and send money home. This time they can’t even do that
> as there is a 370,000 backlog of passport applications and a waiting list
> of two and a half years.
>
> As I write doctors earning less than the equivalent of US$80 a month have
> stayed away from work for six weeks. They say they are incapacitated and
> can’t afford to go to work.  230,000 civil servants are about to follow
> their lead. They want their salaries linked to the US dollar and converted
> to Zim dollars at the prevailing exchange rate. Lowest paid civil servants
> currently earn the equivalent of less than seventy US dollars a month.
> Teachers Union President Mr Zhou said there is “the urgent need for a
> national declaration of incapacitation” and said members were being
> “mobilized to go on strike” next week.  The Council of Churches Secretary
> General Rev Mtata said last week: “There is a high risk of chaos if the
> situation is not solved urgently.” Zimbabwe has now, undoubtedly, passed
> the point of no return and we are very fearful about what lies ahead.  Our
> government remain silent on the way out of this mess.
>
> There is no charge for this Letter from Zimbabwe, now in its 19th year,
> but if you would like to contribute to production and mailing costs please
> visit my website. Until next time, thanks for reading this letter and
> supporting my books about life in Zimbabwe, love cathy 17 October 2019
> Copyright © Cathy Buckle.  http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
> <https://cathybuckle.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b8ebbd1ced9612f7530108602&id=cc611cf2d2&e=b88b8a9b47>
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