Misery in 2003
Zimbabwe faces misery as Mugabe digs in his heels

22nd December 2002

For most Zimbabweans 2002 was the most difficult in 22 years of independence but the New Year promises even greater misery.

As 2003 beckons, President Robert Mugabe has already signaled that he is concentrating his efforts on entrenching his position instead of policies that will reverse his country's ongoing decline into squalor.

In an unprecedented move yesterday, Mugabe's government announced it was imposing price controls on newspapers. They will now sell at their current prices and no more increases will be sanctioned.

The decision to control the prices of newspapers is widely seen as a deliberate ploy to destroy the private press and entrench Mugabe's autocracy.

The move will suffocate many independent newspapers that don't receive state subsidies and have been grappling with spiraling production costs.

Newsprint costs have soared by more than 300% in the last few months, leaving publishers with no option but to increase their cover prices regularly.

For instance, the privately owned Daily News, which cost Z$2 when it was launched three years ago, now sells for Z$100. The Zimbabwe Independent, the premier business and financial weekly, also cost only Z$5 at its inception five years ago but now costs Z$200.

Many Zimbabweans would naturally wonder how controlling the prices of newspapers would bring food to their tables. Many commodities have run short soon after Mugabe's government started controlling their costs, because manufacturers cannot produce at a loss.

Mugabe's government also gazetted controlled prices for school uniforms, rice, toothpaste, electrical appliances, body lotions, hair-care products and building materials.

This move means that in the New Year Zimbabweans will have to do without almost every commodity required for daily life as manufacturers will also stop producing these at a loss.

They source their foreign currency for imports on the expensive parallel market where a US dollar is fetching Z$1700 while the controlled prices are pegged on the basis of the official exchange rate of a US dollar to Z$55.

While in 2002 Zimbabweans grew accustomed to going without the very basics like maize meal, bread, milk, cooking oil, sugar and salt, many families will be disappointed to learn that their children will no longer be allowed to enroll in tertiary colleges without proof of support for Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

First priority for places in tertiary colleges will be given to secondary students who have first undergone the Zimbabwe government's partisan national youth service programme.

The programme has so far produced young militia known as Green Bombers, who have been mostly used to torture and harass opponents of Mugabe's government.

Youth development, gender and employment creation deputy minister Shuvai Mahofa told the weekly Standard newspaper that under the new plan secondary school graduates would no longer apply for places directly to tertiary institutions.

They would instead apply to a committee of six cabinet ministers that would be tasked with first vetting whether they had undergone the national youth service before being considered for places at colleges.

The decision means the hopes of thousands of pupils wishing to pursue tertiary education will be automatically dashed, as preference will automatically go to the Zanu-PF militia.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation hit a record high of 175.5% in November despite the price controls, but it is expected to spiral to 200% in the new year. The IMF expects it to hit 500% in the first few months of 2003.

Shortages of certain basic commodities that don't normally occur even in the most crisis-hit economies have also greeted Zimbabweans on the eve of the New Year. 

The central bank has run out of the paper required to print the worthless Zimbabwe dollars and the local currency is now in short supply. Commercial banks have started rationing the amount that can be withdrawn from the banks.

The central bank has no foreign currency to buy the paper amidst the worst fuel crisis in the country's history.

For the first time Mugabe has admitted the existence of a fuel crisis and said he had no clue about how to resolve it permanently. 

The registrar-general's office has also run out of paper to produce passports and Zimbabweans eager to leave the country will now have to wait for at least one year to get passports.

With no respite expected in 2003, Zimbabweans are expected to focus more and more on how they can extricate themselves from Mugabe and his discredited isolationist policies.

''None but ourselves are to blame for what has gone badly wrong in Zimbabwe. A people get the leadership they deserve. How could any sane people put up with this terrible situation?'' said an editorial by Bornwell Chakaodza, a widely respected academic and editor of the weekly Standard.

''The capacity of Zimbabweans to tolerate this tragedy is amazing. Is it just plain lunacy or stupidity on our part?''

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, raised the tempo on the eve of New Year: ''Mugabe is a total failure and the only solution is for him to resign immediately.''

''The country is grinding to a halt. The state of the nation and the facts on the ground speak for themselves. Even Mugabe's patron, Muammar Gaddafi, has abandoned his bankrupt client. In the eyes of Gaddafi, Mugabe is no longer a puppet worth supporting''.

Basildon Peta   Argus/Cape SA -  Independent Foreign Service