Speaking to The Zimbabwean after a brief walk in the city last week, Tsvangirai said he was shocked at the huge crowds of youths. “The situation in Gweru shocked me because it seems the situation is even worse than I thought. The crisis has now reached an alarming level – government should admit and declare it a national disaster,” he said. Independent economists put the unemployment rate in the country at over 80 percent.
During his tour, he also visited factory shells under construction in Mambo, Ascot and Mkoba suburbs where council is trying to build structures for self-help projects like carpentry, tailoring and metal work. The former PM also toured Mtapa community blocks where council has been building ablution facilities and additional housing structures to ease the burden of hordes of former civil servants who were settled in the facilities before independence on promises of better accommodation in the future – which has never materialised.
Declaring unemployment a national disaster would mean that the government could start formal interventions like exemption of unemployed people from some forms of taxations, subsidies, disbursement of modest grants among others in line with world trends.
Tsvangirai also said government should admit that the formal sector had collapsed and regularise the informal economy. “We need to accept the situation that we have been plunged into. We now live in a fembera fembera ( guess guess) nation where everyone is guessing about their future prospects – some as simple as next meals. Let’s stop harassing vendors. Most people have turned to the informal sector and so we should accept that is now the way to go,” he said.
Post published in: News