via RadioVop Zimbabwe – Zim Named Among Pariah Economies As World’s Most Unfree And Expensive By Simplicius Chirinda January 15, 2014
Zimbabwe’s economy remains in comatose despite dumping the local currency for a multiple foreign currency regime
It’s no wonder why Zimbabwe’s economy is not performing well – it’s one of the world’s most unfree at least according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom
The top survey released recently is published annually by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal. It is used by big investors around the world to make decisions on whether to invest in a particular country.
The index ranks Zimbabwe – currently reeling from an economic crisis following a disputed election in July 2013 that retained Zanu PF leader Robert Mugabe as the country’s leader into power for the next five years- alongside pariah states and troubled countries such as North Korea and Cuba.
Hong Kong was adjudged to be the world’s freest economy followed by high-tech state-city Singapore.
Analysts have blamed the Zanu PF government’s populist policies for the poor performance of the country’s economy which has been in free-fall over the last two decades.
“Hong Kong’s overall score is slightly better than last year due to improvements in government size and regulatory efficiency that offset a decline in freedom from corruption,” the Heritage Foundation said on its website.
“A high degree of market openness, as measured by trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom, has been complemented by a transparent regulatory environment and competitive tax regime.”
Zimbabwe, which in 2009 adopted the use of multiple foreign currencies after the collapse of its currency has adopted an empowerment and indigenisation law that seeks to transfer majority ownership of all foreign companies to local Zimbabweans. The law has been seen as one of the greatest threats to any hopes of economic recovery.
It is not only on the economic front that Zimbabwe has been hogging the limelight. Yet another index released Tuesday has cited Zimbabwe as one of the most expensive countries to dine.
Oxfam’s Food Index – the Good Enough to Eat index released for the first time yesterday said Zimbabwe faces the world’s greatest food price volatility inflation alongside the most expensive country in Africa – Angola.
The index looks at four core concerns for consumers around the world – do people have enough to eat? – Measured by levels of undernourishment and underweight children, can people afford to eat?
Measured by food price levels compared to other goods and services and food price volatility, is food of good quality? –Measured by diet diversification and access to clean and safe water and what are the health outcomes of people’s diet?
The Good Enough to Eat index compares data from 125 countries to create a global snapshot of the different challenges people face in getting the food they need to eat.
The Netherlands, France and Switzerland were adjudged as the best places to eat while Chad, Angola and Ethiopia are the worst. Zimbabwe came out among the worst when it comes to the cost of buying food, making it one of the most horrible places to eat food.
COMMENTS
I have been saying this for a while now and asking what is this regime going to do about it. ZANU MUST SWALLOW ITS PRIDE AND REALISE NOT EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS FREE. Even Smith with all its gross injustices didnot get this embarassing tag. Zanu you must realise you have stuffed up big time but you can redeem yourselves, the question is how?
ZANU has only put in place the policies that many Zimbabweans support. You cannot blame them alone.
Sorry, which people? Ghost voters?
While they are busy compiling statistics,all we know is that the supermarkets are full , there is fuel and the rains are here.
God bless Zimbabwe!
Dream on for those in the rural areas who do not have the inputs. Even before the harvest there are 2,6m Zimbabweans requiring food aid, and the foreign donors are tired of funding what is a ZANU PF created shortage for no good reason. They would also loike to see the diamond revenue used to feed Zimbabweans instead of being hidden away in foreign bank accounts and spent on luxuries by the corrupt ZANU PF friends.
What is the point of having a full supermarket if half the population cannot afford to buy it?
Murimi, There is no mention of fuel and food shortages? The article is talking about high food prices, not scarcity. Is that so difficult to understand?
Good morning Murimi. I wondered where you had gone to? Although it is good to be optimistic I think we need to see the real. Yes. the supermarkets are full but Zimbabwe has millions teetering on the edge of absolute poverty. I agree with Nyoni. I am with a company that services industry and we can see Zimbabwe is in big trouble. Let us be honest. Something drastic needs to happen and ZPF needs to humble itself and begin to tell the truth starting with those 31st July elections. God will not work in the dark. I pray He shines His light into all the dark corners of Zimbabwe for we need serious help. No repentance! no restoration!
@NBS.Yesterday Murimi was looking into mining.Its all above board.He wants to be as diversified as Anglo.
I think its not only govt who needs to repent.The opposition and everyone who is helping to bring down the economy should too.
But the old guard will ask,should we repent about taking the farms ,empowering the people?Or is this about methodology?
Earthly systems are far from perfect.Remember that the beacons of democracy allow abortions and gay marriages.
I agree with Murimi. This all looks more like politics than anything else. ZANU PF is supposed “to repent”, “to see real”, “to swallow their pride”. Surely there in nothing wrong with land reform or even indigenisation? But of course if they do not “democratically” agree with their past colonial masters, they will suffer for it. Well, we will see kunowira tsvimbo nedohwe!
Murimi God has set and standard and when we deviate from His standard we are in sin. Plain and simple. no one is questioning that the land needed reforming in Zimbabwe but the way in which it was done brought Zimbabwe down. It was wrong. It destroyed millions of lives and destroyed our economy. You do not right historical wrongs with violence and revenger and plundering billions of dollars of assets which do not belong to you. I have lived through all this and I know what happened. There are thousands of horrible stories and torn lives. There are several ways in which this land reform could have been done that would have been free, fair and equitable and would have enhanced not broken a nation. If you have a bible read Micah Chapter 2! ZPF had 20 years to sort out this land issue. And to be honest only a few have been empowered. you may be one. This empowerment thing is just propaganda. look around you at your fellow Zimbo; Is he empowered. You don’t empower by taking what is not yours. People are sitting on farms with buildings, crops and infrastructure that they did not build. That is theft!And I am not talking about the actual land here. God will not bless our agriculture until we come together and repent and sort out this mess. He has told me that! And of course ZPF aren’t the only ones who need to repent. The whole nation does starting with the church and the leadership because they should be accountable. To whom much is given much is expected. When a government promotes utter racialism it is an abomination to God. he is not about colour. The farm thing was horribly racial and it also sucked in anyone perceived to be outside of ZPF. Right now as I talk the governor of Mash West has said not one white farmer will be left farming in that area and the few who are farming are being invaded, threatened: infrastructure are being destroyed etc. Do you think God will condone such hatred and wanton destruction? We need to see these things the way He sees them: not the way we want to see them. If each one of us will do that Zimbabwe will be a better place. May His blessings be upon you today and if you become as passionate about Him as you seem to be about building an earthly empire that will pass away one day good things will come.
I think when you talk about god don’t be one sided,remember that god was there when the colonialists first came here and displaced our ancestors from their rightful places.
They were butchered and thrown to the dogs,remember that same god also says “you did iniquities and i kept quiet and you thought I was like you.I will punish you”
Those white farmers ancestors grabbed from the locals violently and the locals thought that god had forsaken them,little did they know that the same lord says to the children of israel I’ll return all your stolen things from you.
The settlers stole from us and god did give us back our inheritance.Don’t try to patronise us when it comes to the word of god.
You may as well write me at stitchemman@gmail.com
Emmanuel, colonialists butchered the natives. Mugabe butchered his own people during Gukurahundi. So taking land from white people, many of whom had been allowed, through the country’s laws, to purchase the land as late as 1999 does not take away the fact that both the colonialists and Mugabe committed murder.
White colonialists murdered blacks, Mugabe murdered black Zimbabweans. Such evil by a man who claims to have fought for justice!
@Kevin. 2.6mil really?It translates to about 1 in 5 Zimbos.If that is the case,then receiving food handouts would become the number one preoccupation in 2014.
But ofcourse the donor community are tired of corrupt Zanu pf,but they managed to bravely carry out the survey in all areas,despite their fatigue.
It gives them a sense of importance-“Hey,2.6mil pple r starvin,& guess what,we r not goin to help”
Would it not be fair to assume that given theses figures,that maybe 100,500,mayb even 1000 will starve to death?
If that is not the case by the end of the year,then u and yo figures can go to hell.
@NBS.Do u remember the 10 year land clause in the Lancstr agreement?The committment by the Tory govt,and the denial by the Labour govt later on?
That in itself made the playing field uneven.
Then there was the failure of the willing buyer,willing seller option.
I cannot defend the violence,but who was going to co-operate?
I beleive that the bible also talks to me when it says u shall stay in houses you did not build and harvest the olives we did not plant.
Come on NBS,there is still hope for u white folks.
Dont go into commercial farming(the governer as a referrence).Be wise.
Suprisingly,the white South Africans are thriving here.U can attest to that,while the black south africans(who mostly have no clue) and my fellow zimbos there are crying abt zim.
I wonder if Mugabe’s rabid dog, Malema, reads this to see how well his heros have done and wants implimented in SA. Where is the money for the EFF coming from. Mugabe and ZANU PF.
Stop crying beloved Zimbabweans. The Almighty is with us. He helped us get our country back on July 31 and wait by end of year you will see that Zimbabwe is back again. Let me remind the cry babies that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. Lets work together as Zimbabweans and show the detractors that we are solid and one.
Wallow in the dust of your incompetence, the dirt of your liberation. Your inferiority complex is causing millions to starve.
Murimi Wanhasi i’m sure you benefited from the farm invasions. I am a black Zimbabwean like you and in as much as i am for fairness and parity in land redisrtibution, lets face it Mugabe messed up in implementing this programme. The whiole exercise was frought with corruption and was simply rushed through to gain his declining support from the electorate. Today we are paying the price for his actions. Unless and until we move away from the Guerilla mindset of Zanu PF which looks at everyone who is not Zanu PF as an enemy of the state, and not giving the talented white commercial farmers a chance to help develop this nation on our own terms we will always be begging for grain unfortunately. I wonder how much of a success you are yourself as a farmer…or maybe like Zanu you always have to shift the blame for your failures on sanctions, and now the banks. Pathetic!! Wake up and smell the coffee, it is time for Zanu and Mugabe to go and have a fresh approach to politics free from the nonsense we have today.
@Dayford.Oh pliz.U have us stereotyped I guess.
We r not all failures,and as everybody on this forum knows,and now for your benefit,we r not all maize farmers.
I do not celebrate the wanton destruction that may have occured,but the end result is we have our land.Painful,but all birth pains come to an end
Murimi, you are not all failures but the majority of you are. That is why Zimbabwe imports food from the very same people from whom land was taken. Its just that most of you are shameless to hold on to land that you not farming.
Murimi, I do remember those clauses. But there was still 10 years after that. And for me personally, you do have some valid points re the willing buyer willing seller etc but none of us can make excuses for our wrongs. The whole thing got out of hand and got nasty and destructive and there was no reason for that to happen. At the time ZPF had a huge parliament majority and they could have written and passed fair and just laws pertaining to the land redistribution but they did not. They did it in a way that was heartbreaking or the whole nation. No mercy! Theft. Violence. Bloodshed. livelihoods obliterated. What about the hundreds of thousands of farm workers affected. But, Murimi, its done now so we need to all come together and fix it so it works. It is never too late until it is too late. But ZPF never want to work with anyone else. I do not believe we should have to class ourselves as white or black Zimbabweans. Why can we just not be Zimbabweans.
The land reform tossed out many of the worlds best farmers and we lost a lot of expertise and experience because we are a bitter nation. Oh and by the way I am not a farmer.
Oh yes, Murimi, of course there is hope. This is my country also. I was born and raised here from many generations back. I do not want to live anywhere else and besides Christ is my hope. I have never looked at Zimbabwe without hope. There is so much I could talk to you about. It is past the time that the differences were settled. never will everyone agree on all points but their is always a unifying point and Zimbabwe must come to the place where we all listen to each other, say how we feel, reach that common ground, respect our different points of view and work to put Zimbabwe back together with God’s grace and mercy.
Emmanuel, of course there were past injustices and as we all know
that judgment came upon white Rhodesia. There are just more godly ways to sort out things. Every country in the world has been ‘colonised’ for want of a better word in their history and some more than once. Man has always conquered man, sadly: it has been the way of a fallen world. This time round I believe that God’s judgment has fallen on Zimbabwe and the white farmer also did not escape that. There is a plan and a purpose in all this but we need to put all this anger, hatred, bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness behind us. It puts a bondage around our nation. Every race and tribe in this nation has had something to answer for. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But God does not look at the colour of a persons skin but at his/her heart. We are the idiots that make it a race/clan/tribe issue.
@NBS. R u a pastor?
coz @ times yo insight is not the usual,me zanu,u mdc.its more than that.
Maybe u r a counsellor?
One thing I know tho,u r not a farmer like Murimi
It always facinates me when a supposedly zimbabweans journalist celebrates ratings that rank thru country “amoungst the worst”…….then goes ahead to finish off with words relating the country to “one of the most horrible places”……..unbelievable. where is the pride? Have u no shame?…..I say that if your objective OS to paint your own country in a bad light, do it by yourself.
It never ceases to amaze me how apologists for Zanu use banal statements like “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” when confronted with the realities of the self destructive polices of their leadership.
in a world where collaboration and diplomatic etiquette forms the bedrock for national development Zanu has chosen the path of obduracy. Its as if we get medals for chastising others at international fora.The reason why we are were we are today is because we have allowed greed and clueless people to the top of the power structures of thr country. They use their power to extend the confusion thats there today do they continue benefiting from.the hubris.
Zimbabwe will never be a colony again? My foot!
Are you not aware that you have actually been colonized by an even more dangerous imperialist- a total
lack of vision and inability to see the realities around. It’s our lack of courage to question the wrongs that our leaders do and have done that has put us in this dwang. If a leadership can solve a crises for as long as ourd have it shows gross incompetence the likes of which would have caused a government or leader to step aside. But not in this country! Zimbabwe will never be a colony again- what nonsense!
If a leadership cannot solve a crises for ad long as our have…….