VERY DIFFICULT CHRISTMAS IN ZIMBABWE.

Harare, ZIMBABWE:
Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa said his country will have a difficult Christmas in the wake of deep seated economic challenges.

The country is experiencing its worst inflation since 2008, which peaked to a 10 year high of 31% last month.

The health sector is in crisis with doctors on strike for close to a month, while there is critical shortage of medicines.
Commodities such as fuel, beverages and basic foods are also in short supply with many industries unable to produce due to foreign currency shortages.

At the weekend yet another outbreak of cholera claimed three lives.

In a Christmas message to Zimbabweans on Sunday, Mnangagwa said:
“there will be further bumps along the road”.
“I am aware that many will have a difficult Christmas. I encourage all of us to be patient, resilient and to work harder in collective unity, as we create a better, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe for all. From my family to yours, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year,” he said.

Despite the bleak atmosphere, many Zimbabweans living in SA are expected to provide a Christmas cheer for relatives and friends back home.

At Beitbridge border thousands made their way home from South Africa for the festive season.
Many of the travelers stocked up on groceries, mindful of the shortages of basic commodities.
“We had to buy everything in South Africa because we have been told shops are empty back home and the few products that are available are very expensive,” said Sharon Takundwa, a Johannesburg based waitress who returned to Harare at the weekend.

South Africa home affairs minister Dr Siyabonga Cwele visited Beitbridge border post on Thursday, noting the increased number of travelers due to the festive season.
In a statement released soon after the tour, Dr Cwele said over 200 000 travellers had accessed the border between December 1 and December 17, 2018.
“This number is expected to increase with Christmas and New Year periods approaching.”

Tweeting from his rural home in Gutu where he spent his Christmas day, MDC Alliance President, Nelson Chamisa, said this year’s Christmas is a sorry one. The MDC Alliance posted pictures of himself in his rural home.

At Solomon Chakauya's grocery store in Zimbabwe's Chinamhora district outside Harare, there's no sign of the seasonal Christmas rush that he needs to keep his business afloat.

Even in the country's toughest times, sales rocketed in the days before Christmas, but this year few people are able to buy anything.

It is a far cry from the revived economy that President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised more than a year ago when he took over from the ousted Robert Mugabe.

Instead, shortages of bread, cooking oil and fuel have worsened in recent months, banknotes become even scarcer and shop shelves have often been left bare.

"In previous years, people would stream in to buy things like rice, oil, biscuits, sweets, soup powder and drinks. It was so busy I would be on my feet all day," Chakauya, 29, told AFP.

"Things are tough and most people have no money."

But over this holiday season, Chakauya has sometimes had only four customers a day, leaving him to kill time sitting in the shade in front of his store.

'I don't consider it Christmas at all'

Local villager Emilda Chingarambe said that for the first time in many years she could not buy her two daughters new clothes for Christmas day.

"I don't consider it Christmas at all," said Chingarambe whose husband works part-time as a labourer tilling fields.

"There is no bread in the shops. We can't afford flour and groceries we usually buy for Christmas."

Shortages have fuelled a ferocious climb in prices and long queues.

In Chinamhora, a litre of cooking oil was around $3.50 in early September and is now selling for $10. Inflation is officially 20 percent.

Once ubiquitous soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and the local Mazoe juice have also become hard to find.

"I haven't seen Coca-Cola in the last two months," Chingarambe said.

No post-Mugabe boom

Zimbabwe's economy has been in dire straits since hyperinflation wiped out savings between 2007 and 2009 and the Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned.

Under Mugabe, farms were seized, agriculture collapsed and investors fled as the country became internationally isolated.

Mugabe's fall last year saw Mnangagwa - his former deputy - claim that he represented a fresh start.

But the country has only lurched into fresh economic trouble after July that failed to encourage foreign investors or to unleash a flood of aid.

"The challenges have dampened the festive mood," Prosper Chitambara, economist at the think-tank Labour and Economic Research Institute, told AFP.

"It does not look like there is going to be an immediate end to the queues and shortages. Next year, there is going to be lots of pressure on the government to increase salaries which will put pressure on expenditure."

The latest downturn erupted two months ago when finance minister Mthuli Ncube announced a two-percent tax on all electronic transactions to increase revenue.

Zimbabweans rely on electronic payments in US dollars, which are in short supply and function as the main currency. The local "bond note" currency is little trusted.

Many shops and pharmacies have closed down in the capital, Harare. Those still operating charge much more when customers pay electronically or in bond notes than in US dollars.

In one shop, a bottle of paracetamol syrup is 3 US dollars in cash, 15 dollars in bond notes -- and 17 dollars when using a bank card.

Doctors at state hospitals have been on strike for the past three weeks demanding salaries in US dollars while a group of teachers completed a 200km walk from the eastern city of Mutare to Harare to demand better pay.

At the ruling Zanu-PF party last week, Mnangagwa admitted the economy "was characterised by fuel shortages, high cost of drugs, medicines (and) wide range of basic commodities."

He offered little immediate relief, instead blaming "gluttonous" businesses for price rises that "resulted in untold suffering to the majority of our people."

SOURCE:Business Day.

Comments

CUBA CLAIMS CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER IS FIDEL CASTRO'S SON.

The suicide note left by Fidel Castro’s eldest son has rocked the Cuban nation this week, with the most astonishing revelation being the claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was his half-brother and the son of the late Fidel Castro. The handwritten note left by Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, the eldest of Fidel Castro’s children, appears to confirm the longstanding rumor in Cuba that Fidel Castro fathered Justin Trudeau after a public tryst with Margaret Trudeau in 1970. “ Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning ,” Cubadebate website reported. The death of the high-profile government nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, stunned the nation, however it is his “ explosive ” suicide note that has set tongues wagging in Havana. Amid a wide-ranging barrage of compl...

8 CAMEROONIAN ATHLETES GO MISSING AT AUSTRALIA'S COMMONWEALTH GAMES.

Gold Coast, AUSTRALIA: A third of Cameroon's athletes attending the Commonwealth Games in Australia have gone missing, the team said in a statement Wednesday. Out of the total team of 24 members, five boxers and three weightlifters have disappeared over the space of three days, the statement said. They left in waves, with three going missing on the night of April 8, another two vanishing on April 9 before the remaining group left at night on April 10. Two of the eight left without competing The Cameroon delegation during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games at the Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast on April 4. Team attache Simon Molombe said he did not expect them to return. "I don't think they will be back," Cameroon's Molombe told CNN Sport, confirming their disappearance had been reported to Australian police. According to the team statement, the missing athletes are: Weight lifter Arcangeline Fouod...

BITTER LIFE AFTER POWER FOR EX-ANGOLAN PRESIDENT, DOS SANTOS.

Luanda, ANGOLA: Attacked from all sides by his successor, the former Angolan head of state José Eduardo dos Santos has had a hard time living through the fall of his family empire. But his heirs did not admit defeat so readily. José Eduardo dos Santos born on 28 August 1942 ,is an Angolan politician who served as President of Angola from 1979 to 2017. José Eduardo dos Santos was also the commander in chief of the Angolan Armed Forces(FAA) and President of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the party that has ruled Angola since it gained independence in 1975. He was the second-longest-serving president in Africa, surpassed only by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, who took power less than two months before dos Santos. Image: Reuters. It’s mid-June in Barcelona. On the sofa in the living room, José Eduardo dos Santos plays cards with his grandchildren. Published on Instagram by his daughter, Isabel, the photo give...

THE UN MAY NOT HAVE MONEY FOR STAFF SALARIES NEXT MONTH.

New York, U.S: The United Nations may not have enough money for staff salaries next month if member states don’t pay what they owe, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday. He told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly’s budget committee that if he had not worked since January to cut spending then “we would not have had the liquidity to support” the annual gathering of world leaders last month. “This month, we will reach the deepest deficit of the decade. We risk ... entering November without enough cash to cover payrolls,” said Guterres. “Our work and our reforms are at risk.” The United States is the largest contributor - responsible for 22 percent of the more than $3.3 billion regular budget for 2019, which pays for work including political, humanitarian, disarmament, economic and social affairs and communications. Washington owes some $381 million for prior regular budgets and $674 million for the 2019 regular budget. The U.S. ...

SOUTH AFRICA MOVES TO SEIZE WHITE-OWNED LAND WITHOUT COMPENSATION.

South African lawmakers agreed to the principle of land expropriation without compensation, and will review the Constitution to cater for this. Parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee will report back to lawmakers on changes to section 25 of the Constitution by Aug. 30, the office of the chief whip of the ruling African National Congress said in an emailed statement Tuesday. The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party proposed a motion to allow land seizures to the legislature, while the ANC proposed amendments. Cyril Ramaphosa, who was elected party leader in December and the nation’s president Feb. 15, affirmed the ANC’s decision to seize land without compensation to speed up land reform, but said it would only be done in a responsible manner that didn’t harm the economy, agricultural production or food security. More than two decades after white-minority rule ended in South Africa, most of its profitable farms and estates are still owned by white peopl...

NIGERIAN POLICE ARRESTS SENATOR OVER MACE THEFT.

Lagos, NIGERIA: Nigerian Police on Wednesday arrested Senator Ovie Omo-Agege over mace theft at the National Assembly. Mr Omo Agege was picked immediately after plenary by policemen who ushered the Senator into a waiting pickup van. The lawmaker had been suspended by the Senate for 90 days last week. He, however, attended the plenary today along with about 10 thugs. The Senate accused him of leading the armed men who stormed the chamber and snatched the mace while plenary was on. READ ALSO: THUGS INVADE NIGERIAN SENATE AND STEAL MACE.

GAMBIA ACCUSES EX-PRESIDENT SUPPORTERS OF SHELTERING REBELS.

Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh (born 25 May 1965) is a Gambian politician and former military officer who was the leader of the Gambia from 1994 to 2017, firstly as chair of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) (1994–96) and then as President of the Gambia (1996-2017). The Gambia’s new government has accused supporters of the former president, Yahya Jammeh, of welcoming foreign rebels into their homes in an attempt to destabilise the country. Residents of Foni, the Gambian region where Jammeh had a vast farm and allegedly“bunkers and treasure”, have been hosting members of a rebel group that for three decades have been fighting for the secession of their region from Senegal. Giving them a safe haven in the Gambia threatens to upset relations with Senegal, which surrounds the tiny west African country on three sides, and was instrumental in ejecting a recalcitrant Jammeh after he lost the presidential election for the first time in his 22 years in ...

MALARIA VACCINE PROVES HIGHLY EFFECTIVE IN BURKINA FASO.

A vaccine against malaria has been shown to be highly effective in trials in Africa, holding out the real possibility of slashing the death toll of a disease that kills 400,000 mostly small children every year. The vaccine, developed by scientists at the Jenner Institute of Oxford University, showed up to 77% efficacy in a trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso over 12 months. The hunt for a malaria vaccine has been going on the best part of a century. One, the Mosquirix vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, has been through lengthy clinical trials but is only partially effective, preventing 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases among small children in Africa over four years. It is being piloted by the World Health Organization in parts of Kenya, Ghana and Malawi. The Oxford vaccine is the first to meet the WHO goal of 75% efficacy against the mosquito-borne parasite disease. Larger trials are now beginning, involving 4,800 children in four countries. Prof ...

MINERS IN NAMIBIA DISCOVER SHIPWRECK LOADED $13 MILLION WORTH OF GOLD.

Image: Dieter Noli. Diamond miners working off the coast of Africa were beyond surprised when they discovered a 500-year-old shipwreck teeming with gold worth $13 million and other treasures. The ship, aptly named ‘Bom Jesus’ or ‘Good Jesus,’ was like a miracle to the miners. Bom Jesus was first identified and discovered by geologists working for the mining company De Beers in 2008. It was found off the coast of Namibia near Oranjemund. Image: Dieter Noli. According to experts, Bom Jesus is from the Golden era of Portuguese explorers who set sail in all directions in search of new lands to colonize. The ship left Lisbon in 1533 under the supervision of Sir Francisco de Noronha. But on its way to India, it mysteriously vanished. Before the discovery, the miners were draining an artificial salt lake. As the lake dried out, many lost ships were found at the bottom of the lake. Bom Jesus was among them, and it is considered the oldest of all ...

SOUTH AFRICA BANS 'REVERSE COLONIALISM' TV ADVERT.

Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA: South African regulators on Tuesday banned a television advert that showed a black man discovering a foreign land and naming it 'Europe', ruling that colonisation was 'not open for humorous exploitation'. The advert, for a chicken restaurant chain, tells a spoof story how the man leaves South Africain 1650, sails overseas and, after many adventures, comes ashore and meets white local people wearing three-pointed hats and waistcoats. 'Hola MaNgamla (Hello white folk). I like this place, I think I will call it... Europe,' the man says, sticking his spear into the ground. The Advertising Regulatory Board ruled that the commercial 'trivialises an issue that is... upsetting for many South African people.' 'Turning the usual colonisation story around might be perceived as having a certain element of humour,' it said. 'The reality though is that colonisation of Africa and her people was traumatic. ...

Kioo17 Journal

Search This Blog