Feature: Good jobs in short supply as Zimbabwe heads to polls
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E-mail Xinhua, July 31, 2013
In a good month, David Rangwani can sell around 1,300 mobile phone top-up cards.
But the money he earns -- about 100 U.S. Dollars -- can hardly last. The 36-year-old father of two spends 70 percent on housing rents and makes do with the rest to feed the family.
In a country that is still reeling from the pains of a decade- old economic decline, finding a decent job is never easy.
Rangwani joined his fellow countrymen to polls on Wednesday to pick a president that will lead the impoverished country in the next five years.
Like millions of Zimbabweans who yearn for a better day in their life, Rangwani has a simple expectation for whoever -- between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai -- wins the presidential race.
"I look forward to a new government that creates jobs, and when we get the jobs, the employers should pay decent wages and on time, " he said.
Rangwani said that the new government should ensure that public schools charge affordable fees, housing prices fall to reasonable levels, while the poor should also be catered for in retirees' homes.
Zimbabwe's economy, once one of Africa's strongest economies, has deteriorated significantly after 2000, shrinking by 50 percent by 2008 before it showed signs of recovery in 2009 after the coalition government was established.
Though the country's economy is not as desperate as it was in 2008 when the last elections were held, Finance Minister Tendai Biti recently acknowledged that the economic growth forecast for 2013 was lowered to 3.4 percent, the lowest since 2009.
A lower growth rate means fewer jobs, economists say.
Rangwani is one of 3.7 million Zimbabweans who the government says work in "informal sector", an umbrella term for people who do not have stable salaries.
The informal sector accounts for 57 percent of the work-age population, compared to only 22 percent with formal employment. Zimbabwe has a population of 13 million and 60 percent of the population are under the age of 24.
Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai campaigned hard on the economic front.
Mugabe's election campaign is running under the theme, "indigenize, empower, develop and create employment", buttressing his Zanu-PF party's policy of indigenization and economic empowerment under which Zimbabweans should own majority stakes in foreign owned companies.
The party says its indigenization and empowerment policy would see an average GDP growth rate of 9 percent by 2018 up from the current 4.4 percent.
At a press conference held at the eve of the elections, Mugabe said he is concerned about the crumbling manufacturing sector, adding that it needs urgent attention.
Mugabe also said he mulls to reintroduce the country's currency but the process will take time and the currency needs to be gold- backed so it won't repeat the tragic collapse of the former Zimbabwe dollars in 2009 amid hyper-inflation.
Tsvangirai, through his party's economic blueprint dubbed Jobs, Upliftment, Investment Capital and Environment (JUICE), wants to create jobs for Zimbabweans through investment attraction.
"The biggest challenge that confronts our economy today is unemployment. Millions of our youths face a bleak future because of joblessness, which is a result of the growth stagnation of our economy," Tsvangirai said.
"So we have put at the epicenter of JUICE- job creation, which is why we have said in the next five years between 2014 and 2018, we will create a minimum of a million jobs. Jobs are empowering. As you know if you don't have a job, you are so totally disempowered," said Biti, who is also MDC-T's secretary-general.
Largenote Mashingaidze, who sells sandwiches by the roadside, says whoever wins the poll should deliver all the promises they make during their campaigns.
"This will show that they are honest and have integrity," he said.
A young plumber called Collen, however, was more pessimistic. A former royal backer of the MDC, he said he was not sure whether he would go to the polling station at all.
"I think it will all be the same, no matter who wins the elections," Collen said. "I have found out that politicians make only empty promises."
A senior social commentator said the populace still have the hang-over from the sufferings during the hyper-inflation years. Salaries, savings, and pensions were wiped out almost overnight.
"When the people sought help from the government, they were told to stand alone, by all themselves," said the commentator, declining to be named. "That is when people start to get disillusioned because they now know they have nobody to turn to." Endi
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