- Dear Family and Friends,
-
-
- A new schedule of minimum wages for some categories of
employment was released by a government department last week. One of the
lowest in the schedule is a yard or garden worker whose minimum wage has
been set at 3.2 billion dollars a month. To outsiders this may sound like
a massive amount of money but in reality it is a death sentence. As I write
this letter a 1 kg packet of plain hard biscuits is 9.2 billion dollars,
a 2 kg packet of potatoes is 3.6 billion dollars, a 400 gram tin of baked
beans is 1.8 billion dollars. By the time you read this letter all of these
prices will have increased; it is likely they will have doubled within
a week.
-
-
- On a full month's pay a yard or garden worker cannot
even feed himself for a few days; worse still, he cannot provide any food
for his family, he cannot buy any clothes or shoes and cannot pay his children's
school fees. God help him if he gets sick. Perhaps the saddest fact of
all is that this government stipulated minimum wage is currently worth
just ten US cents a day.
-
- After almost a decade of political turmoil and economic
collapse, the vast majority of Zimbabweans are unable to cope on their
own and are surviving on charity of some type or other. It may be from
families in the Diaspora sending hard currency home every month, relations
abroad paying school fees and medical needs or friends, churches and other
well wishers sending parcels of food, toiletries, medicines and other
essentials. On a much larger scale help has come from the international
aid organisations who this winter were set to feed 4 million Zimbabweans
- over a third of the population.
-
- This week all aid organizations operating in Zimbabwe
were ordered to immediately stop all their field operations and to re-apply
for new licences. It seems none are spared from the ruling issued by the
Social Welfare Minister. All are affected from school children surviving
on one charitable meal a day to rural households receiving grain and food
relief to people with HIV/Aids receiving life sustaining anti-retroviral
drugs.
-
- The timing of the ban on charitable assistance could
not have come at a worse moment for Zimbabweans. It is winter, market gardening
is minimal and vegetable growth very slow. Supermarket shelves remain largely
empty. All basic goods continue to be unavailable including maize meal,
flour, rice, sugar, cereals, beans, oil and many more.
-
- This week, while Mr Mugabe, his wife and their delegation
were in Rome attending a UN Food Security conference, dire news was released
about Zimbabwe's daily bread which should be growing this winter. The state
sponsored Herald newspaper reported that only 8 963 hectares of wheat have
been planted this winter amounting to just 13% of the government target
of 70 000 hectares. Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo was quoted as saying:
"We have missed the target, with challenges being shortages of fertilisers
and fuel as well as frequent breakdowns of tillage facilities."
-
- Zimbabwe was often in the international news this week
for diplomatic incidents at road blocks, for food insecurity, for ongoing
political violence, for widespread arrests of MDC officials, activists
and MP's and for the prevention of MDC election campaign rallies. For the
ordinary and very long suffering people of Zimbabwe, we are counting down
the days to round 2 of the Presidential election. It cannot come soon enough
and the reasons for which candidate to choose become more obvious each
day.
-
-
- Until next time, thanks for reading,
-
-
- love cathy.
-
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 7th June 2008. www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
in South Africa from: <mailto:books@clarkesbooks.co.za>books@clarkesbooks.co.za
and in the UK from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
|
