- The Observer
32 11.08.19 World
300 miles300 kmBotswanaSouth
AfricaZambiaMozambiqueZimbabweHarareDispatch
Harare
‘Hungry kids collapse as looters take
millions’: life in today’s Zimbabwe
Far from seeing reform
and investment after
Robert Mugabe was
toppled, the country
has fallen into crisis.
Jason Burke discovers
anger and misery
among the millions
‘reduced to paupers’
In the streets of Mbare , the children
play, neighbours talk and a wintry
sun lights neat houses with carefully
tended vegetable plots. But the appar-
ent tranquillity of this poor suburb of
Zimbabwe ’s capital hides a rude real-
ity of misery and despair.
The smoke rising into the evening
sky is a clue. Power cuts now stretch
from dawn to long after dusk. Gas
is too expensive so families cook on
fi rewood, gathering around braziers
as the sun goes down and an almost
total darkness comes.
Another clue is the noise. When
more than a dozen families share a
single 10 metre by 20 metre court-
yard, there is little peace. Through one
gate, in one such compound, Rose
Mkhomo, 27, nurses her 15-month-
old, Brenda. Her neighbour , Maria
Peter, 19, is lucky: she has a job in
a photocopying shop, though her
monthly earnings barely cover two
weeks’ living expenses. “Life is hard
for everyone now,” she said.
It is more than a year and a halfsince the repressive rule of Robert
Mugabe was ended by a military take-
over , and a year since the dictator’s
former right-hand man, Emmerson
Mnangagwa , took power after a con-
tested election.
Mnangagwa promised democratic
reform, a wave of new investment
and the international rehabilitation
of Zimbabwe, a pariah for decades.
At rallies, the 77-year-old former
spy chief and stalwart of the ruling
Zanu-PF party spoke of his country
being “open for business” and prom-
ised good days ahead.
Instead, living conditions for mil-
lions have deteriorated dramatically.
Mkhomo’s husband earns the equiv-
alent of about £40 a month working
in a hospital morgue. The couple pay
a monthly rent of £15. A kilogram of
sugar is almost £22. Bread is unaf-
fordable. “When Mugabe went, we
thought things would get better ... but
it has gone from bad to worse,” said
Mkhomo, who is unemployed.
In recent weeks, the governmenthas imposed austerity measures in an
effort to balance the national budget,
cutting subsidies of fuel. Mthuli
Ncube , the fi nance minister, has also
moved to end the use of multiple cur-
rencies, launching a new Zimbabwe
dollar. Poor harvests, a cyclone and a
drought have compounded problems.
The government stopped publishing
annual infl ation statistics when they
reached 175%.Many others in Mbare and else-
where are surviving on two meals a
day – a breakfast of tea and home-
baked dough, with spinach and maize
meal for dinner.
Only the very wealthy are spared.
The hospitals are scenes of desola-
tion. The sick – including HIV suffer-
ers – lack life saving medicine. Savings
are now worth a fraction of their value
a few months ago. With limited elec-
tricity and no demand, companies are
laying off staff.
O f fi cials say the problems should
be seen as a “sign of revival” as they
implement a programme laid out by
the International Monetary Fund.
“There are temporary issues as the
market adjusts,” said Energy Mutodi ,
the deputy information minister.
“This is an economy that is trans-
forming into a more robust and inno-
vative one ... it shouldn’t be mistaken
for a crisis. We expect prices to sta-
bilise. We are going through a phase
where we need to sacrifi ce and make
some savings.”
After elections last year there
was hope of a bailout from interna-
tional institutions. Some offi cials still
believe that this may happen, and that
the billions in debt run up by Mugabe
will be cleared once Zimbabwe shows
it has taken the tough medicine that
the IMF ordered.
However, western officials have
repeatedly made clear to Zimbabwe’sПОДГОТОВИЛА
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