Christmas will be merry for only a few

With a few days to go before Christmas, the streets of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, are teeming with free-spending "returnees" who have come home for the holidays. But for the majority, who have not been fortunate enough to have found work outside the country, the festive season will just be more of the same: a struggle to survive.

The returnees often drive sleek cars, mostly with South African or Botswana registration plates, and brag in eateries and bars about their financial exploits in other countries.

Innocent Makwiramiti, an economist and former chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, told IRIN, "Given the fact that they [returnees] have foreign currency, life will be a lot cheaper for them during Christmas because they just go to the black market and change their money at a high rate."

It is unlikely that the returnees will change their foreign currency at the official rate of Z$250 to US$1; they will use the parallel market, where exchange rates of Z$3,300 to US$1 can be achieved, although the influx of returnees is said to have forced the parallel market rate down by about 15 percent so far.

For the past eight years Zimbabwe's economy has been in meltdown, characterised by a slew of shortages, including foreign exchange, food, clean water, fuel and energy. The industrial base has shrunk by more than a third, unemployment levels have surpassed 70 percent, and inflation is hovering around 1,000 percent - the highest in the world - putting most commodities, when available, beyond the reach of ordinary people.

The poorly performing economy has forced an estimated three million Zimbabweans to look for work outside the country, mostly in nieghbouring South Africa and Botswana, while others have ventured further afield to Britain and the USA, where a significant number do menial jobs and send remittances home to their relatives.

"Those who are returning are the ones who will be able to enjoy their holiday, while the majority suffer," said Makwiramiti. Trymore Gama, 34, a former Harare teacher now based in Botswana, commented to IRIN, "It's not easy out there [in Botswana], and I toiled the whole year to save enough to come back home and relax with friends and relatives."

He declined to divulge his occupation in the Botswanan capital, Gaberone, but was driving a new luxury German sedan, and said he had booked his mother and two younger brothers into one of the five-star hotels in the resort town of Victoria Falls, where he will be joining them two days before Christmas, "but in the meantime I have to enjoy the fruits of my sweat".

"I also managed to bring along lots of groceries for my people in rural Mount Darwin, and might be getting engaged on New Year's Eve," added Gama, who left the country of his birth in 2003.

The government-controlled Herald newspaper quoted Dennis Chitsaka, principal immigration officer at Beitbridge, the main border crossing between South Africa and Zimbabwe, as saying that his department was clearing more than 15,000 returning residents each day.

Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade unions, said for those with formal employment in Zimbabwe, this Christmas would be the worst in recent years.

"Considering the rate at which prices are rising, and the hyperinflationary environment in which we are living, this Christmas holiday spells doom for most of the workers, who virtually have no money. Christmas is supposed to be a time for joy but, wherever I go, I see long faces as people ponder what to do to bring bread to the table," Matombo told IRIN.

Late last month the finance ministry announced in a new budget that the first Z$100,000 (US$400) of workers' bonuses would not be taxed, but Matombo said the gesture would make little or no difference because most workers received salaries well below that amount.

Mavis Chinogwenya, 28, a clerk at a Harare printing company, said that even though she took home Z$60,000 (US$240), a third of that was used to pay rent and another third for medical aid, her employer had not given them an end-of-year bonus because the firm was operating at a loss.

Chinogwenya, a single mother of two, told IRIN she was trying to muster up Z$30,000 (US$120) to pay for primary school fees and buy a uniform for her son in January 2007. "Christmas day has ceased to exist for people like me because things have become too expensive, while my salary keeps on being eroded by inflation."

Sales at retail outlets, which generally peak at this time of year, are stagnant. "We used to record high sales during this festive season but that is no longer the case," Gregory Moyo, branch manager of a retail shop in Harare, told IRIN. "[We are] sending some of our shop attendants on early holiday, whereas we used to hire part-time staff at this time of the year."

fm/go/he