Despite having one of the richest diamond fields in the world, Zimbabwe is broke, if not actually bankrupt. So where is all the diamond wealth going? Tendai Biti, the Minister of Finance, says he has not received any diamond revenue since January.
Yet there are stories of millions of dollars worth of diamonds being sold. On Tuesday this week rough diamonds worth 160 million dollars were released for sale. To their shame South Africa has publicly acknowledged that they have helped market Zimbabwe’s diamonds despite an international ban on the sale of the ‘blood diamonds’.
According to Farai Maguwu, the Director of the Centre for Research and Development, nothing has changed at Chiadzwa, the military are still in control and the stones continue to be smuggled across the border into Mozambique where black market dealers snap up the gems.
Global Finance, a New York based magazine, last week named Zimbabwe as the second poorest country in the world after Congo-Brazaville. Zimbabwe has 80% unemployment and the manufacturing industry has virtually collapsed. There are no jobs.
Claims that the Zimbabwean economy is on the mend since the formation of the GNU mean little to ordinary Zimbabwean citizens as they struggle to survive.
Stories that school dropouts have dramatically increased as parents are finding it impossible to find the money for school fees do not suggest a hopeful future for these youngsters or the country as a whole.
The confusion surrounding reports of salary increases for civil servants only deepens the economic uncertainty. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai this week told the media that the government had not discussed any such increases for civil servants.
None of this appears to affect Robert Mugabe who continues to fly across the continent using up scarce financial resources to ensure that his presidential profile remains high.
We hear this week that Zanu PF and the two MDC formations have reached agreement on election dates, ‘pencilled in’ we are told for August/September 2012.
It looks as if China will be funding the elections if there is any truth in the story of Zanu PF officials flying to China to beg for funds for that purpose. Winning that election is Zanu PF’s priority; they are not concerned with the desperate situation in schools and hospitals or the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Qualified nursing staff are forced to supplement their incomes by selling fruits say reports. The country is apparently short of 2000 senior nurses as thousands of qualified staff leave the country in search of better paid jobs elsewhere in the world.
A report from the Senior Nurse at a local clinic in the Gwanda district reveals the reality of Zimbabwe’s shortage of financial resources and how it affects ordinary people, particularly in the rural areas.
Mothers are giving birth on the floors because of the shortage of beds; there are no stretchers or wheelchairs, no drug trolleys or file shelves and only ten benches for the entire clinic where patients sit while waiting to see a doctor or nurse.
This is the reality for Zimbabweans while their president flies off to the Middle East for his medical care. This week ten children have died as a result of an outbreak of diarrhoea in Bulawayo.
The spectre of cholera is never far away in a country where maintenance of the sewage system has been neglected and the presence of clean water is dependent on where you live; the poorer the neighbourhood, the greater the chance that people will be drinking unsafe water and kids will be playing in sewage infested puddles.
With the collapse of the economy, statistics in support of these observable facts of daily life are hard to come by. No longer do we see statistics issued on a regular basis since the dept that used to issue those figures is presumably a thing of the past as statisticians leave for those elusive ‘greener pastures’. But the figures that relate to the diamonds are there for all to see and the question remains: Where is all that diamond wealth going?
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH. aka Pauline Henson author of the Dube books available on Lulu.com
Post published in: Letters to the Editor