Mugabe's economics of despair

Mugabe's economics of despair

By Sebastien Berger

Last Updated: 2:19am BST 24/07/2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/24/wzim124.xml

Desperate shoppers queue outside a supermarket in Bulawayo in the hope

of buying essential goods such as meat, chicken or flour

The lone box of washing powder on a Zimbabwean supermarket shelf was

an object lesson in economics.

President Robert Mugabe's government has set prices for sugar, flour,

cooking oil and meat below the cost of production. So there are gaping

spaces under the signs for those goods.

"Everything is stopping," said an illegal money changer, explaining

the sudden fall in demand for foreign currency and the rising value of

the Zimbabwean dollar.

While Mr Mugabe seems to be ignorant of the basics of economy, the

regime appears to be preparing to seize firms in the same way that it

destroyed the country's commercial agriculture by confiscating

White-owned farms.

Businessmen describe the price-control policy as "organised looting"

and say the ruling Zanu-PF party has embarked on a "scorched earth"

programme.

The prospects for almost all ordinary Zimbabweans - those not

connected to Zanu-PF - are dire. Basic commodities are available only

after queueing for hours, and life expectancy is the lowest on earth.

Despite their desperation, the overwhelming sentiment, is one of

resignation and resentment, expressed with quiet dignity. The

opposition is divided and there is no expectation of an uprising.

The washing powder in the Bulawayo store exposed the effects of the

government's measures against hyperinflation, last said to be 4,530

per cent before publication of the figures was stopped.

The manager said inspectors visited the store every morning to ensure

official prices are being followed.

"With the situation now we don't have any stock," he said. "The basic

things you are not going to get. I don't know when we're going to get

them or if we're going to get them. People don't have raw materials to

supply. Basically it's useless for me to go to a wholesaler.

"If nobody's going to make money for them to survive, then what's the

point of producing anything?

"The things that are not available are the things people want and need

- chicken and flour. Ninety per cent of the stock we have got is

things we can't eat. You can't eat washing powder and toilet cleaner.

" We can't even close our doors. They say if we close our doors they

are going to nationalise us, so we are sitting on a time bomb."

He was being only too realistic. Addressing businessmen in Bulawayo,

Obert Mpofu, the chief of the price-control programme, said a defunct

state firm "is now being reactivated with a view to making it a

vehicle to acquire especially trading companies".

"All we are saying is come forward and let us talk," he said. "If you

think there is a miracle that will remove this government and bring

something better, you should be kidding. We do not want you to leave

your business, but should you force us, you will [do so].

"Once we take over a company, we retain all the staff and bring a

manager. All we get rid of is the owner."

The likelihood is that seized businesses, like the White-owned farms,

will be handed out to cronies who will asset-strip and destroy them as

going concerns.

With Zanu-PF members having "bought" cars and flat-screen televisions

at give-away prices from managers facing arrest if they do not comply,

it is also pressing forward with plans to make the national oil

company Noczim the only retailer of fuel.

A proposal to require permits to import food has been suspended

pending "consultations", but not cancelled. The opportunities for huge

black-market profits and control over the distribution of commodities

such as petrol and foodstuffs, are immense.

A current banking advertisement in Zimbabwe has the slogan: "Today we

may look the same but tomorrow one of us has to take charge." However,

the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is split into rival

factions.

With Mr Mugabe making clear he intends to die in office, leading

figures admit the best hope for change is an internal coup within

Zanu-PF.

Moses Mzila-Ndlovu, MDC MP for Bulilima and the shadow foreign

secretary, said Zanu-PF's crushing of opposition, particularly the

massacres of tens of thousands of people in Matabeleland in the 1980s,

had left an indelible mark on the national psyche.

"They have stamped it into the minds of the people that Robert Mugabe

is indestructible, that Mugabe is irreplaceable, that Mugabe is

Zanu-PF, Zanu-PF is here to stay and Zanu-PF is Zimbabwe. If you don't

believe this you will be defeated and that means you are defeated

already.

"That fear that he has been rubbing into the minds of the Zimbabwean

people accounts for the failure of the people to stand up to him."

In Midlands province, a stone-carver who is lucky to sell one piece a

fortnight said: "Here, we are very poor. We are suffering because of