Reaping what Zimbabwe’s government sowed Resources flow for some, with one city council’s executive ‘collectively pocketing’ close to R1bn in salaries each month. Written By Cathy Buckle.

At a time when there is so much international upheaval and turmoil, I feel almost uncomfortable writing  about life in Zimbabwe. Our story of a nation in crisis has been going on for 25 years, but just as you have watched and supported us, we are also watching you now, listening, and trying to understand global events currently taking place because what affects you affects us, ripples in the water spreading ever further.

This column is a snapshot of seemingly unrelated events, but all are connected because they are the end result of decades of disputed elections, widespread corruption, and repeated cycles of economic collapse.

After decades of disastrous policies that destroyed food production, caused massive unemployment and collapsed manufacturing in the country, we are now reaping what our government sowed while we watched.

It’s very early in the morning, and smoke is beginning to rise in my suburban neighbourhood. An owl hoots one last time before it lifts silently out of the branches of the Msasa tree and disappears into the pre-dawn silhouettes. Zimbabwe’s moms are out there already, breaking sticks and twigs and feeding them into their fires to heat water for bathing and to make tea and porridge for breakfast.

The call of a red-winged lourie fills the dawn while young women walk past on the road carrying buckets to the nearest public hand pump to get water. This is the reality of life here: 25 years into Zimbabwe’s turmoil and 45 years after independence, we generally have no electricity for 12 to 18 hours a day and no water in our taps.

And every day, we wonder what crisis lies ahead for us in the latest economic crash.

Driving through my home town this week, I glanced across at the closed, run-down branch of Truworths shop on the main road and let out a heavy sigh. This week, we heard that [the Zimbabwean operations of] upmarket clothing store Truworths, a leading clothing retailer, has collapsed.

Truworths began operating in Zimbabwe in 1957, was listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in 1981, and had over 100 branches by 2001.

Sixty-seven years after it opened, Truworths is now being sold for just one US dollar. Media reports describe the end of Truworths as a reflection of the deep crisis in Zimbabwe’s retail sector.

Across the country in Bulawayo, it was reported that Mpilo Central Hospital had no electricity for two days after thieves broke into an electricity substation and stole cables and ‘critical infrastructure’. Maintaining its functions requires relying on 10 backup generators that consume 3 000 litres of diesel daily, costing the hospital US$4 800 (about R88 210).

Close to R1bn a month for city executive salaries

Next came the snapshot from Harare with this outrageous news …

During a commission of inquiry, Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume revealed that the City of Harare Council’s Executive “is collectively pocketing half a million US dollars [around R9 188 620] in salaries each month”. (New Zimbabwe)

The town clerk earns a massive US$27 000 (about R496 185) a month.

The lowest-paid member of the executive earns US$15 000 (R275 658) a month.

To put that in perspective, government teachers, nurses, and other trained professionals earn around US$200 to US$400 (about R3 675 to R7 350) a month.

It is obscene that council salaries are so massive while in the cities they manage, the roads are crumbling, potholes are craters, storm drains are uncleared, taps are dry, street lights haven’t worked for decades, and mounds of garbage lie festering on the roadsides.

Illegal mining

Lastly came the snapshot from Matabeleland South recently. The Secretary of Presidential Affairs, Tafadzwa Muguti, was in Matabeleleland South looking around catchment areas of major dams to see the environmental devastation caused by illegal mining.

They came across a 150-metre bridge over the Umzingwane River, or what was left of the bridge. It turned out that a Chinese company called ‘Friends of the Environment’ had partnered with EMA (Zimbabwe’s Environment Management Agency), saying they were going to fix the damage caused by illegal miners.

Muguti said it was “later found out that by day they [the Chinese] were closing the pits … and by night they were mining”.

“They destroyed a whole bridge while looking for gold,” he said.

I end my column this week with this thought relevant to Zimbabwe, Sudan, DR Congo, Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, America, and Russia, and to all the peacemakers, researchers, journalists, and writers trying to expose the real truth and save us from ourselves.

In 1996, a few months before his death, American astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan said: “If we are not able to ask sceptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be sceptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.”

Copyright © Cathy Buckle