- Dear Family and Friends,
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- We have been plunged back into a dramatic, gruelling
electricity crisis for the last ten days which has left most areas receiving
electricity for 5 hours a day. When electricity is restored it is only
in the middle of the night between 11.30 pm and 4 am. Normal functioning
has become almost impossible and no electricity means no water can be pumped
and many days communication also collapses as mobile phones are unable
to pick up a signal. In private homes water supply has dwindled to 2 or
less hours a day, geysers are cold, fridges and deep freezers have defrosted
and their contents gone bad.
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- I paid a visit to the main ZESA (electricity supplier)
offices and asked the lady at the enquiries desk how many more days or
weeks of this we might be facing. "I don't know," she replied.
Is the problem at Hwange or Kariba, I asked. "I don't know,"
she replied. Is it maintenance or faults, I asked but again she said: "I
don't know." I left shaking my head and muttering, exasperated that
such a bored and uninterested person was keeping her job with this attitude
in a country where 9 out of 10 people are unemployed.
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- Unemployment is huge in Zimbabwe. Everywhere you go there
are groups of young men standing around doing nothing. Youngsters that
have been to school and are strong, willing and able but just can't find
jobs. Young women are in equally dire straits: they come out of senior
school and are keen, fresh and eager to work but there are no jobs. University
graduates, new degrees in hand, are no better off, unable to find places
to put their new skills and talents to work.
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- When you talk to employers about the unemployment problem
you see the other side of the coin but its just as gloomy. Business is
very slow as most people are on survival budgets and nothing is left at
the end of the month after food, utilities, rent and transport have been
paid for. Businesses can't afford to update equipment and machines and
there is nothing left to put aside for expansion or improvement. For most
small companies, all the income that is generated is keeping ten or twenty
employees paid and settling bills and nothing is left over.
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- One businesswoman explained that when we changed to trading
in US dollars a year ago, most companies started with literally zero capital;
everything they had was in Zimbabwe dollars and this was rendered useless
overnight. Coming after 10 years of hyperinflation, repeated devaluations
and government imposed price controls, it is nothing short of miraculous
that any local businesses survived at all.
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- A year into our so called unity government, things are
just as difficult for employers. Imagine trying to run a business without
electricity: computers, tools, engines, machines that cannot be used. Workers
stand around idle, unable to work and yet you still have to pay them. Employees
can be sent home until the electricity comes back on, but that could be
any time as power cuts are erratic and unexpected and schedules non existent
or not adhered to.
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- Many businesses have had no option but to buy generators
but every litre of diesel used eats away at income and profits dwindle.
Then there are the never ending calls for increases in wages and threats
of strikes and when employers try and retrench some staff to save others,
they are hit with massive "packages" which leave their companies
in debt and close to bankruptcy.
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- Then there's the minefield of things that you only find
out by mistake. One small businessman told me how he'd been investigating
the status of his bank account this week. The amount he had left in the
bank had dwindled to a negative balance and when he queried where his money
had gone he was shown the list of fees, charges and commissions the bank
had taken. Then the businessman noticed a regular amount being deducted
that didn't fall into any of the other categories. He queried it and was
directed to the bank accountant.
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- "Ah, she said, that's funeral insurance. If you
die we'll pay towards your funeral." Funeral insurance that the man
hadn't asked for, hadn't been consulted about but that the bank was just
deducting! Can you believe it?
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- This is the reality of running a business in Zimbabwe
and until politics stops interfering, there's not much light at the end
of the tunnel.
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- Until next time, thanks for reading,
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- love cathy.
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- c. 2010 - cathy buckle 21st February 2010.
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- www.cathybuckle.com
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- For information or orders of my new book: "INNOCENT
VICTIMS" or previous books "African Tears" and "Beyond
Tears," or to subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write
to:
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- cbuckle@mango.zw
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