JOHANNESBURG - I am sorry mamazala (mother-in-law), but this bed will have to go with tomorrows lot. My carrier is already full and can only accommodate small items like your television set and that microwave oven, a perspiring goods receiver for a Bulawayo-bound bus told a woman in her mid-thirties. The gathered crowd mumbled its discontent. Furniture and electrical goods were scattered throughout the depot, their owners having arrived too late to secure their place on the bus. That is why we always tell you to book early, shouted the receiver. Even if you decide to go somewhere else, you will find the same situation and end up coming back here because all the other buses are full and will remain so for the next two weeks, he later said in an interview.
Some of us are in business, a lady in the crowd complained. It has been like this since last week, said the receiver. I dont even have time to clean my office. According to the receiver, Zimbabweans working in South Africa compete with cross-border traders by sending their goods home at the end of every month. If you want to send your goods home, you have to book at least a week before the end of each month, otherwise you will be disappointed like those people you saw outside, he said. People start to book on the 23rd of each month, meaning that we will be full from then, up to around the 10th of the following month as cross-border traders also join in.
Despite the improvement in Zimbabwes economy, the flow of goods across the border from South Africa is constant. We have people sending such things like television sets, bedroom suites, sofas, dining room suites and kitchen units. Those are the goods that take up a lot of space in the bus. Only those who do not have passports to cross the border put up with the high prices that are being charged at home.
The receiver said that it was still preferable for Zimbabweans to travel into South Africa to purchase goods. I come here every two weeks with orders from my clients for furniture and other big household goods, said Sharon Shumba, a cross-border trader from Harare. Shumba dispelled the notion that Zimbabweans did not have buying power. If I tell you how much Zimbabweans bring here to South Africa everyday, you will not believe me. We compete with locals in bringing revenue here and since the waiver of visas; I tell you that we have been coming here like no-ones business.
While Zimbabwe continues to recover from a decade-long economic decline that is largely being blamed on the miss-governance of President Robert Mugabe, its citizens prefer the cheap goods of neighbouring South Africa.
Post published in: Agriculture