Focus on the struggle to make ends meet

Like many Zimbabweans, the main concern of Simon Marume is how he can stretch his salary to feed his family. Marume, 49, works for a milling company in the capital, Harare. His wife is unemployed and he has five children to support. He also has financial obligations to his extended family in his rural home area of Masvingo, in southwestern Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans have seen their standard of living collapse as a consequence, say analysts, of failed economic policies and the withdrawal of support by donors and investors. The government's controversial land reform programme has further hurt an agriculture-dependent economy which, on top of drought, has left 6.7 million Zimbabweans in need of food aid. In October, inflation hit a record 144 percent with every indication of an even more dramatic increase in 2003. But Marume is one of the lucky ones, he has a job in a country where formal sector employment can only absorb a fraction of the number of school-leavers who enter the job market each year. But his employer has indicated the company would lay-off most of its full-time employees during the Christmas break, due to an acute shortage of foreign currency and raw materials. "I earn only Zim $19,000 [US $345 at the official rate] a month because my company cut down our working hours in order to maintain a manageable wage bill," Marume told IRIN. "How on earth can I sufficiently fend for my big family?" For the past two years he had not been able to travel to his rural home to visit his aged mother because of rising transport costs. Now, he only sends her on average a token Zim $500 [US $9] a month, hardly enough to buy a 2-kg packet of sugar. According to a survey released by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ), a family of four needs Zim $35,000 [US $636] for basic commodities each month, a more than four-fold increase on the CCZ's January estimate. The reality for many people earning far less, and the 70 percent of Zimbabweans who are unemployed, is that they have been forced to cut back on the number of meals they eat a day. That has raised fears of malnutrition in urban areas, especially among children. The government has responded to the crisis with a six-month price freeze on a range of products to cushion consumers. The move extended the items on a list first introduced last year and includes fuel, all meat products, salt, vegetable oils and sugar. It also covers alcoholic beverages and household items like soap, candles and toilet paper. But economists have warned that, as with last year, the new measures would merely push more goods on to the black market and worsen existing shortages. Currently, basic commodities such as bread, maize meal, cooking oil, soap and sugar are in short supply on the shelves of established supermarkets. They are, however, readily available on the black market where they are sold at exorbitant prices, which the CCZ figures do not take account of. Mbare is one of Harare's poorest and oldest high-density suburbs. Its bustling Musika market is where commodities absent from price-controlled shops are found, albiet at a price. A bucket of maize should sell for Zim $500 [US $9], but costs a whopping Zim $3,000 [US $54] in Mbare. Last year the government established a team to monitor price controls, but prices continued to soar and the black market boomed. Manufacturers re-branded some of their products, and as the new brands were not covered under the gazetted price controls, they were free to sell them at any price. Police at the nearby Mbare and Matapi police stations sometimes raid the illegal vendors, although their eagerness has allededly waned with each passing day. There have been accusations that some police officers are benefiting from the racket, a charge that has been swiftly dismissed by senior officers. Victor Chisi, a CCZ official, blamed the proliferation of the black market on managers of retail supermarkets and wholesalers. "While we acknowledge that there are shortages in the country, some managers are abusing their positions by creating an artificial shortage for selfish purposes," he told IRIN. According to economist John Robertson, price controls were a populist move that would eventually bring more misery. He argued that price fixing would threaten manufacturing companies already struggling to cope with increasing input costs and falling demand. "The government has announced an extended price freeze while at the same time advocating better wages and salaries. This will threaten the viability of companies, drive away investors and depress the economy even further. As a result, there will be more job losses and the unemployment rate will soar," he told IRIN. Although the government had announced an 80 percent salary increase for civil servants from January next year, the raise is seen as insufficient. Macdonald Mangauzani, treasurer of the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), said given the rate of inflation, the increment would be worthless by the time it was implemented. "The budget salary announcement is a pathetic response to our calls. Considering that teachers and most civil servants are poorly paid at the moment, the increment is just a drop in the ocean," Mangauzani said. The PTUZ recently organised a national strike to press for better salaries and working conditions, but its leaders were arrested and charged under the Public Order and Security Act.