Economic meltdown bites and colleges fail to open

Banks ran out of cash with thousands of people milling outside for money, some companies shut down over the cancellation of electronic bank transfers and the University of Zimbabwe announced it was suspending indefinitely its scheduled opening, owing to a lecturers strike for better pay. And there’s also a virtual news blackout. People desperate for news and information have to negotiate the high cost of newspapers and the chronic power cuts restrict them to occasional bulletins on radio or TV.

 

UZ students who went to campus on Monday found notices telling them the university would be closed indefinitely. Vice Chancellor Levy Nyagura said the decision was reached after a meeting of the UZ council. At the centre of the problems for the institution is a strike by lecturers who are demanding better pay and working conditions. The state of facilities at the UZ is also said to be deplorable’ with toilets not working, among other things. A former student told Newsreel that half the toilets at the UZ were not working 7 years ago and one can only imagine what the general state of decline is right now.’ Under council health and safety by-laws the college would never pass any checks of its facilities.

 

Elsewhere all the other major colleges are also closed including the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the Midlands State University (MSU). Lecturers at NUST have been on strike for more than 3 months also demanding better pay and working conditions. Mfundo Mlilo from the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) confirmed that only the Harare Polytechnic, Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo and the Bindura University were open.

 

On Monday banks completely ran out of cash as thousands tried to withdraw their money. The new Z$20 000 cash withdrawal limit still means long queues in order to get hardly enough money to survive. With inflation pegged at 530 billion percent by some independent experts it’s not hard to see why the banks can never supply enough money to meet demand. But instead of addressing the fundamentals the Reserve Bank has been fire-fighting the symptoms. The cancellation of electronic bank transfers has been one such misguided move, and many companies face closure over the new rules.

 

Economic analyst Bekithemba Mhlanga told Newsreel that Gono’s policies had given rise to the mass use of electronic transfers as a way of beating cash shortages. He said the big problem is that there is more money in people’s accounts than physically exists in notes and coins in the banks. He called this virtual’ money and said senior officials in the central bank were involved in shady RTGS deals that had worsened the situation. He said Gono’s measures were an attempt to solve problems he created via his own policies. The only surprise is that Zimbabwe is having economic problems at the same time as the rest of the world,’ Mhlanga remarked.

 

According to the Kubatana blog, an underground movement calling itself People to People distributed flyers in Harare over the weekend rebuking the Reserve Bank Governor for printing substandard bank notes in the form of the new $20 000.’ The new notes have no security features and so are very easy to counterfeit and many shops and vendors are refusing to accept them.

 

Meanwhile the group the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’ (ROHR) has slammed the decision by Justice Joseph Musakwa on their court challenge over cash withdrawals. On 25th September they had applied to the High Court for a complete scrapping of cash withdrawal limits. The Judge ruled the case was not urgent. ROHR members Rodgers Chigwededza, Tinashe Gotora, Jackson Mabota, and Precious Mateyeni had all filed a petition asking the court to scrap or review the withdrawal limits.

 

ROHR expressed frustration the judge would rule the case is not urgent, and should join the long civil case queue for it to be heard. In other words we are supposed to join another queue to stop the cash queues?’ their statement read. One of the applicants in the case, Jackson Mabota, is the sole bread winner while his wife is pregnant. His salary is deposited in the bank and he is struggling to get his money from the bank so he can sustain his family needs. Mrs Mateyeni (another applicant) has two school going children who have been missing classes because of the cash crisis caused by Gono’s policies.’

The attitude of the judiciary summarizes government attitude to the crisis. The fat cats are OK and they just don’t care about anyone else. – SW Radio Africa News