Fear of mass protests rises

via Fear of mass protests rises – DailyNews Live 21 August 2015

HARARE – With most Zimbabweans stressing about the country’s dying economy and rising poverty levels, as well as the heightened company closures and job redundancies, more and more observers are predicting the imminent explosion of social unrest and debilitating mass actions.

The latest to envisage more doom and gloom for the country is United Kingdom research company, NKC African Economics (NKC) — a unit of the world famous Oxford Economics think tank.

NKC’s dire prognosis of Zimbabwe’s immediate future comes as local analysts have said the country has hit the depths of humanitarian and economic despair that were last experienced in 2008, when Harare’s seemingly unending political crisis precipitated an economic meltdown of monumental proportions which culminated in the death of the Zimbabwe dollar.

NKC said in its latest report on Zimbabwe that a wave of mass demonstrations and social unrest, spawned by the country’s stuttering economy and high levels of poverty and unemployment — due to decades of misrule by President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF — were likely to rock the country soon.

Commenting on the recent Supreme Court ruling which confirmed that employers, just like employees, could terminate the contracts of workers on three months’ notice, NKC said this would further create the conditions for mass demonstrations.

“It is barely conceivable that the Zanu PF government anticipated the consequences of the Supreme Court ruling for close to a month (or perhaps they were too distracted by the opening of Grace Mugabe’s new ice cream factory and the free samples they received).

“Within days of the ruling, dismissed workers were already flooding the streets, yet it took another two weeks and more for any official government reaction — even though the actions had started stirring yet more anger against the regime of President Robert Mugabe,” part of the scathing report reads.

It said further that even if the new legislation that was being put in place prevented further job losses, it was “a little too late” and angry masses were likely to confront Zanu PF and its government, which stood accused of causing the economic rot.

“Already, unions’ protests have been denied permission and prevented by force, adding new stresses to the political environment,” it said.

The reference to Grace’s new ice cream factory is in relation to the launch last week by the controversial First Lady of new dairy products, including ice cream, at a time when most of the country’s companies are reeling under the weight of the economic crisis — a move that courted the ire of the opposition who accused her of being insensitive to the plight of the poor.

MDC spokesperson, Obert Gutu, said Grace’s “extravagant display of wealth in a sea of poverty” was a clear sign that the Zanu PF regime did not give a “hoot” that people were suffering terribly.

NKC weighed in saying with the government seemingly burying its head in the proverbial sand, it was “only a matter of time before something gives in”.

“The Zanu PF regime’s apparent ‘let them eat ice-cream’ attitude, including its belated and empty response to what was an entirely predictable crisis of new job losses merely increases the prospect of heightened political instability in a country with a moribund economy, ruling regime in crisis, ruling party in disarray, unemployment rampant and people increasingly desperate,” it said.

It added that the economy was currently in freefall — and that the clueless government was in “sixes and sevens” about how to stop the malaise.

Analysts have also noted that poverty in the country has increased from 63 percent in 2003 to 76 percent in 2014, with most of Zimbabwe’s population living on less than $2 a day.

Only two days ago. Mugabe’s ally and respected Zanu PF elder, Cephas Msipa, told the Daily News that the country’s deepening political and economic crises — manifested by the escalating and brutal infighting within Zanu PF and the worsening waves of job redundancies in the country — would precipitate chaos.

Analysts have said contrary to the government’s heavy propaganda, the Zimbabwe economy is “definitely dying”, as manifested by worsening liquidity challenges, company closures and job losses.

Speaking in interviews with the Daily News recently, the analysts — who laid the blame squarely on Mugabe and his warring Zanu PF for the country’s myriad problems — also lamented the fact that the nonagenarian appeared “completely clueless” about finding solutions to the problems.

“We do not expect the economy to recover in the near term. The recently announced mid-term fiscal policy review statement confirmed our fears that the economy has stalled. We believe that even this forecast (of 1,5 percent growth) is ambitious and expect growth to be negative this year (at -1percent),” Invictus Capital — a securities advisory firm — said, for example, in a recent report.

Afghanistan-based analyst Maxwell Saungweme said unless “something dramatic” happened very soon, Zimbabwe was in fact headed for a political and socio-economic crisis that was worse than that experienced in 2008 when the country recorded one of the worst inflation levels ever reported anywhere in the world, where shop prices were literally changing by the minute.

“In 2008 we had our own currency to play with, though it was valueless, but this time around we have the US dollar which is hard to get for both the cash-strapped government and the people. Unemployment is also currently much, much higher than in 2008 and getting worse.

“Add to all this is the fact that the government is more clueless this time than before, in terms of providing economic reprieve for the people. And donors have also cut back on support to civil society and non-governmental organisations that used to provide life-saving interventions,” said Saungweme.

Renowned economist John Robertson said the situation that currently obtained in the country was already “statistically worse” than that which prevailed in 2008.

“I think we’re back to 2008, and in some cases it is actually worse than 2008. On the employment front, the number of people who are unemployed now is worse than we had in 2008.

“Statistics show that we actually have the same employment figures as we had in 1968, almost 50 years ago. While two million jobs were supposed to be created, we only have about 700 000 people employed, of which half of them are employed by the government,” Robertson said.