This term was coined during the 1992 successful presidential run by Bill Clinton. I remember flying home to Harare on Saturday 18 November 2017 to participate in the demonstration to demand Robert Mugabe resignation. My expectation from the then incoming president Mnangagwa was not that democracy would improve in Zimbabwe, I thought at least he would manage the economy better. Throughout Africa we have less democratic countries such as Uganda, Botswana, Egypt, Rwanda etc but whose leaders know how to manage economies.
I have tried doing various projects in Zimbabwe since I left the country almost 13 years ago, the economic environment has become worse. Early this year, I took the painful but rational decision to stop our only project left in Zimbabwe being our piggery project. The issues are state corruption, the absence of rule of law, the poor management of the economy etc. In Zimbabwe authorities do not excessive just administrative actions. You can wake up one morning, the state will have imposed far reaching measures that might mean the closure of your business.
For the last five years we bought maize from local farmers and from nowhere the government gazetted a law to make it illegal to buy or sell maize. A farmer next door could get arrested for selling maize to you😢 For years I would bring maize from Mutoko to Chivhu about 300kms away without a problem but the new laws made doing that a criminal action and police would impound your vehicle and permanently forfeit it to the state.
After the disputed 30 July 2018 election, a then respected finance minister was appointed and I welcomed this move. From the minister’s statement before he was appointed, he had proposed using the South African Rand and that made economic sense. Around November 2018, he announced his budget and announced that he would stick with the Zimbabwean dollar. At that time I already had tobacco seedlings ready to be planted and my target was 10 hectares of tobacco. I was planning to go home permanently and managed the farming on my own. Although I had already incurred costs, it was prudent not to send more forex to Zimbabwe and I donated the seedlings to local farmers.
We still stuck with our piggery project but we decided not to expand it horizontally and vertically as per our plans. The decision to bring back the Zimbabwe dollars made inputs in Zimbabwe very expensive and we started buying from South Africa. The problem was when selling the pork, we always lost money because of the premium on physical cash as compared to EFT.
The power shortages of 2019 when Lake Kariba water level were very low made it worse, abattoirs couldn’t buy more pigs as the butcheries were not stocking huge quantities. What really sunk us was the shortage of maize and a tonne of maize was costing US$300 as compared to $130 in South Africa plus transport. The logistics of buying maize and pig concentrate were a nightmare as you require an import permit.
If we had a stable and properly managed Zimbabwe, I would be better off in Zimbabwe than in South Africa farming as there is a huge gap in Zimbabwe. There is so much land that lies idle and a lot of dams that are not being utilized. The reality now is that you will need your head examined to send your hard earned forex to Zimbabwe as things stand. I discuss with many Zimbabweans based overseas and they would rather buy properties in South Africa than build a house or start a project in Zimbabwe
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