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The death of disposable income and the deal brokers
Marko Phiri
February 06, 2007

The rapid erosion of people’s disposable income in the past few years has become the major talking point as Zimbabwe’s economic maladies continue without any signs the incumbent government has any clue about how to stymie that hemorrhage. What has made the case worse for many here are experiences Zimbabweans have gone through since the coming of independence about how so much has been taken from them by the regime. Only ten years ago for example though the decline had already made its epiphany, so-called gainfully employment saw many young men being able to purchase household gadgets, get a pair of trousers each month and maintain accounts with exclusive clothing shops, and just about have a time of their lives. Looking at these same not-so-young men today and recalling the lives they were able to live inspires the kind of anger against the system as what has been exhibited by good men and women who feel betrayed by someone they love.

I recall it was pretty exciting to see those household furniture delivery vans laden with the then popular kitchen chairs, lounge suites, wardrobes and it was a sure sign that a local boy had indeed come of age. They became the envy of the neighbourhood, and while the more modest would have preferred that these deliveries were made in the still of the night, the other folks loved to have this when the local boys were out on the dusty streets kicking the plastic-made football. It was great feeling anywhere as life had to be lived to the fullest. Now because so much has changed over the past decade but with the authorities insisting we are better off than we were during the white years because we are now "ruling ourselves," young men who get jobs today toil so much without much to show it one wonders what keeps them waking up in the morning and heading for their jobbing place.

I listened the other day to a tout proudly saying his father had found him a job – three times actually – at different factories but each time he quit before pay day because he felt the work he was putting in was not equivalent to the salary he had been promised. Instead, he felt he was making himself a better life sliding the commuter omnibus door and yelling profanities at people old enough to be his parents. The attitude of this tout is not isolated. Nowadays, young men prefer to dice with incarceration doing shady deals than waste their lives working in the so-called formal sector when there virtually is no formal economy to talk about as everything worth anything is now to be found anywhere but official outlets. For many young people of this country, the frustration has also come from knowledge of how their contemporaries are living in neighbouring countries like Botswana and South Africa. The streets are full of stories about the good life of not only the nationals of these two nations but more importantly childhood friends who have found new life in those countries.

The fact that peers who seemingly were on the lower end of everything - when they still walked the streets of the land they claim as their motherland - but braved the move to a strange land have become the envy of the neighbourhood points to Zimbabwe having killed the will and spirit of many young people here. Now, those who decided to stay here and resist the lure of the Pula and the Rand but figure themselves to be streetwise have become the envy of other peers less gifted in the area of the fast talking seen in the legendary car salesman. It just is not normal to have virtually all young people being involved in some deal of some sought chasing instant riches like they were playing Lotto. And we hear each day many who say "it is us the grade zeros who drink from the 1st to the 30th," obviously spiting those in formal employment.

In the past, getting a university degree was a sure way of saying one’s valedictions to poverty, but today, these people who - under normal circumstances supposed to be a country’s brains trust – now also spend their time trying to broker some clandestine deal where the arm of the law is avoided like the plague. What kind of government kills the human spirit to levels where even primary school children know parents are struggling to send them to school? Nothing like that happened in the country’s formative years as young children merely expected to be well fed and sent to school, no questions asked. It was their birth right, but that has been taken away from them as they now know "dad is perennially broke."

So imagine what that does to a family man who each day wakes up in the morning ostensibly to win the family bread, comes home with nothing but the family expects to be fed. And the expectation is legitimate anywhere because it is every father’s responsibility to feed the family. Is that man not being turned into something he is not, and kicks the family dog for no apparent reason? The erosion of disposable income has turned many into lives they would not have led a decade ago. The proliferation of "hot property" in the streets is sign that so-called ordinary Zimbabweans have it up top the necks about the hardships here. Today, the streetwise will tell you no sane person buys anything directly from the shop no matter what it is. You want a lounge suite, talk to so-and-so who works at this furniture shop and it will be delivered to you for half the price. You want paint, we know so-and-so who will bring it to you later when the owls start hooting. Of course such kind of transactions are to found anywhere else where people exist even in the developing world, but Zimbabwe offers a very bad case study. A colleague wondered rather loudly the other day and asked what keeps a poorly paid shop worker coming to work considering their earnings are eroded by transport costs only. The answer was, they have learnt the survival skills that have been seen from the ruling elite. They pilfer from the employer or else they would be better off cutting deals which all the same are likely to leave them behind bars - that is if they fail to buy their freedom from some "visibly" hungry cop. That is the nation we have become.

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