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(NEWZIMBABWE) Returning to Zimbabwe after 4 years, I find a country on the march

Returning to Zimbabwe after 4 years, I find a country on the march
by Gilbert Nyambabvu
06/05/2010 00:00:00

When New Zimbabwe.com man Gilbert Nyambabvu left Zimbabwe four years ago, nobody was giving the snake-bitten country a chance as President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF governmment appeared out of its depth to fight the economic meltdown. But a year after the veteran leader was forced to share power, Nyambabvu returns to find a country on the up, although challenges remain:

GLOBAL media attention on Zimbabwe tends to focus almost exclusively on the fragility of the country’s coalition government, the emotive land issue and, lately, the contentious indigenisation programme.

One gets the impression of a kind of socio-economic and political stasis; of a country that may have forced a bottoming-out of the hyper-inflationary mayhem of the last decade and, yet, still contrives to make the same policy mistakes that led to these problems in the first place.

These narrative choices sadly ignore the tremendous progress which has been made since the country’s feuding politicians struck an admittedly imperfect deal to share power following the inconclusive general elections of March 2008.

I recently spent nearly two weeks in Zimbabwe -- travelling between Harare and Bulawayo, rural Lupane, Matopos as well as the resort town of Victoria Falls -- and found the transformation the country has undergone quite incredible.

When I relocated to the United Kingdom nearly four years ago, I left behind a country teetering on the brink of total collapse; a people so wrought by the herculean challenges of just getting through each day that the general sense of hopeless resignation was nearly palpable.

Yet Zimbabwe is changing.

Getting into central Harare from the airport, one immediately gets the impression that sections of the economy - mobile phone companies in particular - are doing pretty well in the dollarized economic environment.

Econet Wireless, NetOne and Telecel billboards fight for pride of place at the airport and along the city’s streets while their advertisements are clearly keeping much of the media industry in business.

Sim cards, which used to be a very precious and expensive little luxury, now cost anything between US$2 and US$10 and the companies are struggling to cope with the increased volume of business resulting in network congestion.

There was little surprise therefore when, during my first week in the country, Econet announced after tax profits of more than US$100 million.

Again, as we drove into central Harare from the airport I was stunned by the number of swanky new Mercedes, BMW and Lexus saloons as well expensive dark-windowed 4x4s that dominate the city’s pot-holed streets. The battered old Mazda 323 or Nissan Sunny sedan is now an odd irregularity.

Indeed, a shiny new stretch Hammer limousine purred by one evening, as we queued to get into the Harare gardens for a HIFA event.

Around the city, shop-shelves were stacked full with imported goods and there was not a queue in sight either for fuel, money or food stuffs.

Most of the people I met - from the multitudes of nouveau riche who spend without a care in the city’s pubs and restaurants, to the mobile phone airtime vendors on street corners - spoke with hope and a cautious optimism about the future.

Venues hosting the annual Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) were packed with locals and pilgrims from countries such as Germany, France, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom who said they travel to the country every year for the event.

In Bulawayo, the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) grounds were teaming with locals who had paid for a family day out.

I went round Bulawayo’s pubs and beer-halls looking for a Scud or the re-launched ‘Shake-shake’ without any luck. The natives were freely spending worn-out US dollar bills on local lagers and imported beers.

My nostalgic yearning for the Scud was only ministered to by a sympathetic teacher in rural Lupane who said he had returned home from South Africa at the start of the year to go back into teaching.

“I had been in South Africa over the last six or so years doing all sorts of odd jobs. But I decided to come back at the start of the year and found the situation not that bad.

“While the money we get from government is still not enough, one can at least manage to feed their family and enjoy the odd drink,” he told me.

Explanations for this dramatic change differ, depending of course, on the political inclinations of the individual speaking.

An independent journalist based in Bulawayo reckoned it was all due to what he called the “September 15 moment”, when President Robert Mugabe and long-time rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai agreed a deal to share power.

“The agreement did not only bring about a modicum of political stability in the country. It also helped improve business confidence,” the scribe averred.

But a banker in Harare said the political deal alone could not have reversed the country’s inexorable economic malaise, and offered what I thought was a more plausible explanation.

“It was dollarisation and the subsequent economic liberalisation measures that made the difference.

“Ditching the Zimbabwe dollar reversed the hyperinflationary trend of the last decade, ensuring a level of stability and predictability in the operating environment that business had not experienced for a long time,” the fellow said.

This, however, begs what should be a very disconcerting question for the ‘proud nationalists’ in President Mugabe’s Zanu PF party.

Surely they must wonder whether they would have been forced to endure the humiliation of supping with ‘imperialist lackeys’ in the MDC had they put aside their ‘sovereign pride’ and ditched the Zimbabwe dollar much earlier.

Again, and perhaps more importantly, couldn’t earlier introduction of multiple currencies have spared ordinary people the untold misery many just barely survived in 2007 and 2008?

Still, not everyone is impressed with the apparent progress or convinced that it can be sustained.

An elderly white journalist who made a living out of peddling the ‘Zimbabwe crisis’ to news agencies in the West ranted at the organisers of HIFA, accusing them of creating the ‘phony impression’ that ‘things are back to normal’.

“Look at all these white people,” he railed, no doubt encouraged by a few too many swigs of Zambezi lager. “They have come from all over the world to have fun in Harare - creating the false impression that there are no problems in this country”.

Problems for the good old chap mean President Mugabe’s stubborn refusal to swear-in Roy Bennett as deputy agriculture minister or sack attorney general Johannes Tomana and central bank chief Gideon Gono, as well as the lack of movement on media and constitutional reforms.

Such esoteria is, however, above the concerns of some ordinary people whose worries are far more basic.

An elderly female vendor at Mbare Musika in Harare said people were still generally struggling to survive adding power outages and water supply problems continue in the city’s poorer areas.

“While the situation has certainly gotten somewhat better, most people are still battling to survive. Don’t be misled by the flashy cars you see in the city centre. Very few companies are re-employing and most people don’t have jobs,” she said.

“The majority of those lucky enough to be in employment take home no more than US$100 and with rentals for a room averaging about US$30, there isn’t much left for food, utility bills and other basics.

She was also emphatic on the issue whether non-resident Zimbabweans should now return home to help rebuild the country.

“You are better-off staying put where you are. Give it another year or two, if the idea is to come back and look for a job. But of course if you are into deals you can come back because that is how some of these people are getting rich,” she said.

The elderly lady probably had a point. Because, while central Harare looks flash, organisations representing industry and commerce say capacity utilisation remains constrained largely because of the lack of capital.

As a result, there isn’t enough money in circulation -- a problem not helped by sceptical donor countries that won’t help because ‘there is no guarantee President Mugabe will not sack his coalition partners once the funds are made available’.

Again the use of foreign currencies means the country‘s central bank cannot properly massage economic activity through monetary policy measures, let alone replace the worn-out one-US dollar bills.

Zimbabwe appears to be largely a ‘dealer’ economy. And since dealers don’t generally pay tax, the government can’t raise the huge sums needed to repair the country’s damaged roads and other key infrastructure.

“People are generally dealing in diamonds, platinum, used clothes imported from outside the country, mobile phones -- the lot,” a journalist colleague said.

There is also the problem of profiteering. A taxi driver charged me US$30 for the shot hop from Cresta Lodge to Harare Airport. I was later told the fare shouldn’t have been more than $20.

Retailers are also on the take, exploiting the lack of change to make a killing by pushing volumes.

You get into a shop to buy a tablet of bathing soap and are told change is only available in the South African rand – at an exchange rate that benefits the retailer, of course.

Alternatively, you are asked to buy some other product in lieu of your change. Again, they might give you a ‘credit note’ which can be redeemed for more goods but only from that same shop.

The government also needs to reign in the shocking profligacy in some of the country’s local authorities. City and town councils are said to be among the best-paying organisations in the country with salaries taking up between 70 and 80 percent of revenues, leaving almost precious little for service delivery, infrastructure repair and other capital projects.

Thus pot-holes on city roads increase and widen into dangerous craters; rubbish goes uncollected and there is no improvement in water supply and sewer reticulation - particularly in the poorer suburbs.

However, despite the evident challenges, most ordinary people and some business executives are fairly optimistic about the future.

“Yes, we are making what you might refer to as baby-steps, but its progress still,” Ross Kennedy, a tourism executive told me.

He added: “Problems remain, no doubt, but we have turned the corner and I’m sure nobody wants to go back to the chaos of the last few years.”

His views were echoed by a taxi driver in Bulawayo who said while people were not happy with the hybrid political set-up and the unending bickering in the coalition government, most appreciated the relative improvement in the economy.

He told me: “Things are much, much better now. The last few years - particularly 2007 and 2008 - were terribly bad. I am not sure words can adequately express what people went through and I don’t even know how we survived.”

“You see, I am a parent and almost everyday I had to explain to a starving two-year old why there was no food in the house. Nothing could be harder for a parent! But now shops are filled with goods and one can at least put food on the table.”

Labels: GILBERT NYAMBABVU

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