Author: TSA Press

The city has since late November imposed 96-hour dry periods for residential water customers, though industrial and business users have continued to receive service, according to the Bulawayo City Council.

An extended drought has reduced supplies of stored water, forcing the city to decommission two of its major supply dams, said Nesisa Mpofu, a spokeswoman for the council.

Shortages of hydropower-produced electricity also have affected the city’s ability to pump water from the dams, she said.

“Out of six dams, Bulawayo now remains with four water sources,” she said.

The four-day water outages – up from three days previously – have spurred widespread local efforts to store more water and to find alternative sources.

Arnold Batirai, a councillor for Nketa, a suburb of Bulawayo, said many residents in his area had access to alternative water sources such as wells or water supply trucks provided by the council.

But he acknowledged that not all borehole wells were still functioning, while shortages of fuel had affected water truck deliveries in some areas.

“Despite these challenges, we do encourage residents to conserve water and report burst pipes or water leakages,” he said.

Many residents now keep buckets or other containers of water in their homes, sometimes filled at their place of work.

“I carry a 25-litre container to work, where I fetch water from the bathroom, mindful of colleagues who may report me to my superiors,” said Siphathisiwe Ndimande, a mother of three who lives in Nketa.

Affluent residents in some suburbs have dug new deep wells in response to dry taps and installed large tanks that store thousands of liters of water.

Other parched residents, such as 71-year-old Mildred Mkandla, have installed water harvesting systems on their homes, to catch what rain falls.

“Residents don’t harvest rainwater but watch it flow away,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“My household is unaffected by the shedding because our main source of water is underground water, while I also harvest rainwater from the roof (and) that’s connected to the taps,” she said.

Mkandla said her household had installed a 46,000-litre (12,000-gallon) water tank to store rainwater, and now does not rely on city water – or pay bills for it.

Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, said several years of drought had created serious problems for Zimbabwe’s water supply.

“We are still recovering from a devastating drought that occurred (in 2018) due to El Nino. Under normal circumstances during this time of the year, the country would have recorded significant amounts of rainfall with impact to our dams,” he said.

‘WATER FOR ALL’

Zimbabwe has seen rain in recent weeks – including violent storms that destroyed roofs and washed away bridges – but water reserves overall remain low.

Ndlovu said families had been advised to try to harvest rainwater and to plant early maturing crops, which require a shorter period of rainfall to grow.

“My ministry is looking at how best to assist communities,” he said.

But some Bulawayo residents said the national government had done too little to help the city.

“Government has done nothing to solve Bulawayo’s water crisis,” complained Sinothando Mathe, who lives in Pumula North, a poor western suburb.

Faced with struggling residents, Raji Modi, a Bulawayo South legislator and the country’s deputy minister of industry, in November initiated his own “free water for all program”.

Water trucks he has hired now deliver water to neighborhoods without it, drawn from his own borehole wells.

“I have a sustainable water plant and decided to assist residents who go for days without due to water cuts,” he said, noting the cost of the effort was mainly fuel for the trucks.

Modi suggested pumping and storing more groundwater could be one way to help Bulawayo deal with its worsening water shortages.

“We need to invest in modern technology and effectively use underground water. Countries in the Middle East don’t have much water yet don’t have a crisis because they invest in technologies,” he said.

“We need to adopt the same because water is the foundation for industrialization and development,” he said.

Bulawayo City Council officials said they remains optimistic Bulawayo will not face a “Day Zero” where taps run completely dry despite rationing and restrictions.

Cape Town, in neighboring South Africa, avoided such a situation in 2018 by making widespread reductions in water use. Many of those restrictions still remain in place, in recognition of long-term climate-driven drying in the region.

For now, Bulaway officials have pinned their hopes on divine help.

“Despite interventions in place, we pray it rains,” said Sikhululekile Moyo, a councillor for Pumula North.

She said a long-term solution would be to bring water to Bulawayo from the Zambezi River, 400 km away – but plans for such a diversion are costly, have been delayed repeatedly for more than a century and are opposed by Zambia.

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The worst economic crisis in a decade in Zimbabwe has been compounded by a drought that has reduced water levels in dams needed for hydro-power, leading to 18-hour electricity cuts that are roiling industry and mines.

Delta, which is 40%-owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, said on Tuesday that shortages of foreign currency meant the company also struggled to import raw materials during the half-year ending September.

“Our production and distribution operations were disrupted by the shortages of electricity and fuel, which in themselves are a manifestation of the limited availability of foreign currency,” said Delta.

The company said it owed $72 million to foreign suppliers.

Sales of carbonated soft drinks were down 56% during the same period, while volumes for the popular and cheaper sorghum beer fell 15%.

After experimenting with dollarisation in the last decade, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government surprised the market in June by bringing back a national currency.

The transition from dollarisation to the Zimbabwe dollar has unleashed inflation, which has eroded salaries and savings while the domestic currency continues to weaken against the greenback.

Post published in: Business

Mautsa’s only customer offered to buy a wheelbarrow of sand — a key ingredient in household construction works — at half the asking price. With little choice, he grudgingly agreed to sell at $70 Zimbabwean dollars (US$5 on the local interbank rate).

The father of five said his family has been forced to cut down on meals as the price of basic commodities soars thanks to hyperinflation.

“It has been a tough year. You simply cannot make enough to make ends meet,” Mautsa told CNN.

“On a good day, I make $200 Zimbabwean dollars, but lately business has been going down because the traders are too many. Last year was better, I could even save money for my children’s school fees, but this year inflation has decimated my income.”

“The year 2019 has been a tough one,” she said. “We saw the price of basic commodities spiral. School fees and rentals skyrocketed. Power cuts were the order of the day and fuel became scarce. We have endured a lot, and as we enter 2020 I am hopeful that things will change for the better.”

“I can say the coming year will be better because most basic commodities are now available in shops,” she added.

Now with the New Year on the horizon, Botha said her main concern is how she is going to feed and dress her two sons given the volatile economic landscape in the country.

Vimbai Mutsena-Shumba from Chitungwiza, a dormitory town 30 kilometres south of Harare, said cash shortages were a major issue and hopes that the government will bring an end to this challenge.

“People are spending hours in queues at the bank to access cash, and I hope that in the coming year the responsible authorities will put an end to this problem,” she said.

With the scarcity of cash, Zimbabweans have over the past few years relied on mobile money for the settlement of most transactions.

While mobile money is gaining wider acceptance, in the informal sector most products have higher prices when using mobile money, which forces consumers to pay premiums of up to 50 per cent to get cash from mobile money agents.

“The major challenge that we will continue facing as business owners is the continuous declining demand of goods since income is being eroded by inflation. While the supply of basic commodities has remained stable, the spending power of the ordinary Zimbabwean has not,” said Langton Muwati, a grocery store owner in downtown Harare.

Muwati added that in the coming year the government should offer the productive sectors a stable operating environment by solving the power and fuel challenges currently facing the country.

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing daily power cuts lasting up to 18 hours after a severe drought reduced water levels at the country’s biggest hydro plant, the Kariba South Power Station.

In March this year, Sinohydro, a Chinese state-owned hydropower construction company, completed the Kariba South Hydro Power expansion project to boost power supplies in the country.

Although Kariba South was recently expanded to generate 300 additional megawatts, the station cannot generate enough power due to lower water levels in Lake Kariba.

Besides electricity cuts, Zimbabwe is also facing a huge fuel crisis which is attributed to the shortage of foreign currency which is needed to import fuel.

The fuel crisis also had a negative impact on the prices of commodities which have been going up whenever fuel prices are increased.

Zimbabwe’s official annual inflation rate was the second-highest in the world, at 176 per cent, when the national statistics office suspended the release of data in August.

The Southern African country’s inflation reached historical levels of 500 billion per cent in 2008, rendering the local currency worthless and leaving savings and pensions useless.

The country then adopted a basket of currencies, among them the U.S. dollar, South African rand, Botswana pula and the British sterling pound in a bid to bring stability to the economy.

This year the government outlawed the use of foreign currencies, leaving the local currency, the RTGS dollar as the sole legal tender.

However, the local currency has been rapidly devaluing, resulting in many business owners pegging their products to the U.S. dollar.

Post published in: Business

I remarked to him that we were doing pretty well then – we had peace, a rapidly growing economy, we were part of the wider world and it seemed that our politics was going in the right direction. Then the Federation broke up, the white population rejected change and the first shots with live ammunition were fired after more than 60 years of no violence. The Nationalists launched their armed struggle for change and from 1965 onwards we were increasingly isolated from the world around us.

What followed was 15 years of mandatory UN-backed sanctions and an armed conflict that drew in all our neighbours and in which we killed each other with enthusiasm. The Rhodesians won all the battles and lost the war leading to 37 years of dominance by Robert Mugabe and his liberation war colleagues. They never really settled down and by 2000 we were again locked into a toxic mix of international isolation, stagnant or declining economic output and domestic conflict and violence.

International and regional intervention hardly helped but did change the course of our history at key moments – the break-up of the Federation, the intervention of the Americans in 1976, then Lancaster House and finally the Mbeki managed South African initiative that brought us 4 years of recovery and compromise from 2009 to 2013. But for the most part, we mismanaged our political, economic and social situation ourselves and as a result, we brought down on ourselves political instability and increasing poverty and disparity.

During the 90 years of white settler control and government, the whole country worked for the welfare and interests of a small white community. After 1980 the whole country worked for a tiny minority of politically connected individuals who supported the systems that kept the Mugabe Government in power and control. All other concerns were secondary. Whatever the system, the effect was the same – the majority suffered and experienced marginalisation and poverty.

Then came November 2017, the first time we took action as a people to rid ourselves of a regime that had run out of time and space. Like the decision in 1923 when we decided to stay out of the new Union of South Africa, this event was not in any way sponsored or engineered by outside forces and for the first time found almost universal support among all Zimbabweans. It was assisted by the Military who overnight became heroes of the people. However, it did not change the centre of real power which had become the small group of people who ran the Joint Operations Command under the leadership of Mr Mnangagwa and General Chiwenga.

The first post-November Government was drawn from this group and was dominated by elements linked to the Military. Then the elections in 2018 when Zanu PF engineered a convincing victory with three-quarters of all Council seats and two-thirds of the Parliament. Mr Mnangagwa could then claim, for the first time, to be the legitimate leader of Government, even though his victory was with a tiny majority. It was only at that moment that we saw a new dispensation of sorts emerge in the form of the first really Mnangagwa controlled Cabinet.

The President broke with the past at two crucial moments – after the MAT in November and then after the elections. In both cases, he clearly committed himself and his new Government to fundamental changes and to re-establishing a working relationship with the international community after decades of isolation and hostility. The response to these clear indications of intent was immediate, and the international community responded saying that if we followed through on these undertakings, they would support our economic recovery and reengagement efforts. It seemed at last that the world was at our feet again.

But it was not to be. We quickly appreciated that the President did not have the unfettered power that Mugabe had exercised over the country for 37 years. The first Cabinet was a divided house and little was achieved in respect to the reform agenda in the first 7 months. This changed significantly with the elections but again there was evidence of conflict in the corridors of power where key decisions are made and executed. Then towards the end of 2019, the President restructured his Cabinet and made a number of key appointments.

And so we came to the end of a disastrous year in many respects. The Transitional Stabilisation Program had required savage cuts in Government expenditure, a controlled devaluation of unmanageable domestic debt accumulated in the past five years and restructuring of costs in the economy to bring them more into line with regional realities. It has been a tough year for everyone, except a few individuals who seem to thrive no matter what happens to the rest of us. One young Zimbabwean drives around Harare in a Bugatti – perhaps the most expensive car in the world. His friends all boast luxury cars with brand names that put them in a similar bracket. Wealth with no visible means of support.

But we must look beyond these disparities and problems and recognise that our pain as a Nation has borne significant fruit: our domestic debt is now a tiny fraction of what it was and is manageable, our international debt has only increased marginally and is now being serviced to some extent. Our civil service was costing us 100 per cent of all our taxes a year ago, it now consumes 35 per cent, our fiscal deficit was massive and equal to 40 per cent of the entire budget of Government, is now positive and we ended 2019 with nearly Z$2 billion in the bank. We have liberalised our foreign exchange market and restored the viability of our export industries which are now expanding rapidly with the result that we now have nearly US$1 billion in our bank accounts and Government has a small surplus in the Treasury in hard currency.

These are not small achievements and what annoys me is that so little recognition has been given to the Government and the President for their stance on these issues which have been very tough on the entire nation. I am pleased that at least the International Monetary Fund found sufficient reason at the year-end to give us a cautious thumb up for what we achieved last year despite some serious deviations.

So where are we going in the next decade? Is it more of the same? We just cannot handle that plus the changes now being inflicted on us by climate change. Everyone and I mean everyone, not just those in power, must accept and acknowledge this – we have to start doing things differently. For me 2019 has set the stage – now we must move on and decisively. I hear that the MDC is planning a series of large scale demonstrations in early 2020. Is that really the answer? Will it really bring change or simply lead to more street violence. I agree with S B Moyo when he called for the Police to escort demonstrations through the streets of our towns and make sure they do not spill over into looting and violence. But we all know that these events can only be managed so far.

Rather I think we need to work together to get things right in our country. Is that so difficult to understand and accept? But it will only happen if we put the country first in all that we do – and not the pursuit of power or wealth.

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HARARE, ZIMBABWE— Zimbabwe plans to import corn to circumvent crop loss in the previous year and expected continued drought for 2020, according to Bloomberg.

Zimbabwe is currently in the midst of back-to-back droughts, which is causing issues in producing corn.

Bloomberg said Zimbabwe’s corn imports are working to feed about 8 million citizens. The country’s corn consumption is about 2.2 million tonnes per year.

“We are facing a drought unlike any that we have seen in a long time,” said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, during the middle of peak farming season in 2019. “We are talking about people who truly are marching toward starvation if we are not here to help them.”

According to the WFP, a poor harvest in 2014-15, historic drought in 2015-16, and the second-worst cyclone on record in 2019 have taken a toll on Zimbabwe’s ag sector.

“The consequences for the population are dire, chiefly because 80% of Zimbabweans depend almost entirely on rain to feed their crops and livestock,” the WFP said.

According to a December 2019 USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Network System (Fewsnet) report about Southern Africa, the October 2019 to March 2020 season started poorly with widespread rainfall deficits, forecasting models anticipate a below-average rainfall through March, including in surplus-producing Zambia and South Africa.

“This follows the poor 2018-19 season, during which widespread drought resulted in poor agricultural production and deteriorated livestock conditions,” Fewsnet said. “These trends are compounded by flooding and conflict in DRC and very poor macroeconomic conditions in Zimbabwe.”

The Fewsnet report forecasts below average production in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe while South Africa and Mozambique, the region’s largest maize grain producer, are likely to produce average to below-average ag production.

“Since Zambia and South Africa produce more than 70% of regional maize grain, regional maize grain supply for the 2020-21 marketing year is expected to be below 2019-20 and the five-year average,” Fewsnet said. “As a result, maize grain prices across the region in 2020 are anticipated to remain high and exceeding 2019 prices.”