I thought we had seen everything that this country of ours could throw at us, but the situation right now looks like nothing we have seen before. Prices have quadrupled and continue to rise inexorably, incomes remain fixed or at least only 15 to 30 per cent higher for people in paid employment, fuel is still short or expensive and now massive electricity cuts. At my place in Harare we are out of electricity for 15 to 18 hours a day, every day.
Personally, I started to pay for my long term security with a major pension company when I was 17 years old, my father having told me you have to have an insurance policy. Eventually my portfolio was 5 policies - all with the same company, the biggest in the region, and I had contributed in one way or another well over a million US dollars to this company for my personal security once I retired.
Today this company, proudly sends me an e mail each month saying we have paid your pension into your account today in the amount of RTGS$94.00 (that is about US$10.00). A cup of coffee costs RTGS$8 to RTGS$12 in local coffee shops.
I met with a small group of student leaders on Saturday and they asked me all sorts of questions - one thing I told them was never pay into a pension fund. But really, what kind of a future can we offer our brightest and best young people if we cannot maintain the most basic economic ingredients for growth? What sort of future faces them and how do that prepare for that future? For most of them the future is a passport.
At Church on Sunday, one of the larger aid agencies told me that they were gearing up to provide basic food to 5 million people in the rural areas but were now thinking they might have to start a program in urban areas where absolute poverty and hunger were becoming a major issue. If you cannot provide food and fuel to your people, we are, as far as many people are concerned a 'failed State'. How else do you describe what is happening?
But the reality is that we are far from a failed State, our fiscal surplus in the first quarter was $500 million, we are accumulating hard currency in our banks, for the first time ever, the balance of payments is strong, so why the crisis? Let's look at each problem one by one.