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From First World to Third August 30th 2003 Once-affluent settlers are now among casualties of Mugabe's policies ROBBED of most of their pensions by government policy, and too proud to seek help, Zimbabwe's elderly whites are a small but unique dimension of the catastrophic impoverishment and famine of the past 3 1/2 years brought about by President Mugabe's corrupt and ruinous rule. The estimated 12,000 white pensioners still in Zimbabwe are the professionals and administrators who migrated here, mostly from Britain and South Africa, in two waves, to escape the Depression of the 1930s and then the bleakness of life after the Second World War. They thrived in a burgeoning economy. "They are the generation that built this country into the best-run country in Africa, with the highest standard of living anywhere," the administrator of an old age home in Harare said. "They worked hard and planned meticulously for their futures. Mugabe has wrecked everything." Inflation hit 400 per cent last month and is expected to reach at least 700 per cent by the year's end. The price of fuel has just tripled and earlier this week municipal rates went up 300 per cent. State policy on pension funds has also contributed to destitution. By law, pension funds have to invest 45 per cent of their funds in near-worthless government bonds. "The Government is funding its overspending by confiscating pensioners' money," John Robertson, an economist, said. One pensioner, William Sydney Rutherford, 87, his back hunched by age, jutted out his chin and managed large strides for his monthly three-mile hike to collect his pension from the post office in Harare. The effort was almost wasted. Zimbabwe's post office, in common with all the country's financial institutions, suffers a chronic shortage of banknotes. "Sorry, no cash," the woman behind the counter said. Then, seeing the shock on the frail Scot's face, she left her cubicle, returning with next month's means of survival in Zim$100, $20 and $10 notes. "You can't buy anything with that," she said apologetically, counting out the pile. His monthly Zimbabwe government pension of Zim$3,386.25 is worth 40p - enough for three loaves of bread and a couple of bananas. In May Mr Rutherford was rescued by a charity from the servant's quarters of his suburban Harare home, where he lived alone, surviving mostly on porridge. "With all this inflation, I was pretty hard up," he admitted. He spends most days in the male ward at the B. S. Leon Trust, reading books from the home's library on the Allied campaign in Italy, where he served with the British 6th Armoured Division. He gets three meals a day and money for pipe tobacco. If it was not for the B. S. Leon's benefactors, Reg Griffiths, its administrator, said, Mr Rutherford and the growing number of other destitutes there would probably die. Olga Cummings, 89, lived comfortably on her pension when her husband, a permanent secretary in a Rhodesian government ministry, retired around independence in 1980. "Money was money then," she said. Now her monthly Zim$18,000 is worth £2. The sudden privation has had tragic consequences. In May, Roy Males, 78, shot his almost-blind wife and then himself in their flat when he could no longer afford her medication, police confirmed. An elderly widower in a south Harare home fixed up a trap with a shotgun when his money ran out and killed himself, even though he was getting three meals a day. "It's the loss of pride that really gets to them," Ian Helby, who helps to run an "adopt-agrandparent" scheme for a Harare Rotary Club, said. Margaret Dawson said: "My money has just run out and I can't even afford lavatory paper. If my family weren't helping me out, I would have cut my throat." "I'm fine, and my health's not giving me a problem, touch wood," said Rachel Semple, MBE, 93, born in Glasgow and now living down the corridor from Mr Rutherford. But her broken leather shoes and the tattered old strap that holds her late husband's watch on her wrist tell a different story. Her spectacles are scratched, but she cannot afford a new pair and so she cannot read or watch television. "I live by my radio, and go for little walks," she said. Mrs Semple draws a pension from the Federal Rhodesian Government that was dissolved in 1963, when she worked as a receptionist for Sir Roy Welensky, its last Prime Minister. Staff at the B. S. Leon Trust say that the pension is worth almost nothing. Jean, 89, the widow of a former Royal Air Force officer, refused to give her full name. "I don't want anyone to think I need help," she said. She lives in a central Harare flat with her 59-year-old mentally handicapped son, who has a heart condition. She says that she gets Zim$21,000 (£2.50) for her son from the RAF Benevolent Fund. Two Chinese vases are almost all that is left of her heirlooms. The rest were sold last year with the furniture, television and radio. She and her son survive on a hamper of food and other basic commodities delivered monthly by a charity. "I hate to impose on people," she said. Jan
Raath - The Times UK |