AFRICANEWS
ZimbabweDestitution on the increasePovertyby Rodrick Mukumbira
Everything has gone up here in Zimbabwe," says Tranos Shenjere, a father of four. "I don't know if I will be able to continue providing for my family." He adds. Shenjere has moved his family from a standard house to live in a shack in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital city, because he could no longer afford to pay the basic rental charges. According to a 1995 Poverty Assessment Study Survey by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare 62 percent of 12.5 million Zimbabweans are living in households with income per person below a level sufficient to provide basic needs. Statistics indicate that there are over 300 000 destitute families in Harare and 120 000 in Zimbabwe's second large city, Bulawayo, an increase of over 62 percent in two years. Matters started to take for the worse in 1991 after the government adopted the International Monetary Fund (IMF)- inspired Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). These programmes were aimed at rejuvenating the country's ailing economy but instead that have had a negative impact on the people. Their adoption resulted in a reduction in government funding of such social services as education and health and the introduction of price liberalisation which resulted in prices going up and removal of subsidies on basic commodities. Companies were also forced to retrench workers as they also faced the burning stint of the economic reforms."The cost recovery measures which came with the introduction of economic reforms have meant that the poor are asked to dig deeper into their pockets. People are left to fend for themselves and those who cannot pay for services are left on their own and so more people become indigent," says Zimbabwe's School of Social Work principal, Dr Edwin Kaseke. A special fund was introduced after the country adopted economic reforms to cushion the vulnerable members of the society. The fund, the Social Dimension Fund (SDF),falls under the Department of Social Welfare in the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare ministry. However, the fund is now riddled by financial problems resulting in the Department of Social Welfare closing some of its provincial offices and retrenching some of its staff. The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, which received US$118 million in the current financial year, allocated only US$2.6 million to the Social Dimension Fund (SDF) against a deficit of more than US$5.6 million for social services. The little money allocated to the SDF means that very few people have benefited from the fund. The safety nets programme has three components that are health services, education and food assistance. It intends to reduce urban poverty and unemployment through economic and social development and create opportunities for income generating projects. But it seems not to have worked and a surge in poverty has been one of its results. Dr Kaseke says the causes of destitution vary from urban areas to rural areas. In urban areas, Kaseke says, the problem is unemployment and the low salaries and wages people receive. "The wages and salaries can no longer keep pace with the rate of inflation and this has a direct bearing on the living standards of most of the people," he says. He adds that 46 percent of the people in urban areas live below the food poverty line meaning that they cannot afford basic meals. In Zimbabwe 72 per cent of its population live in the rural areas were poverty is more prevalent. However, in the rural areas destitution is mainly caused by the people's lack of productive capacity. Lack of capital, drought, the nature of soils or excessive rains, as was the case of last year among others, results in people not being able to fend for themselves and their families. Aids related illness and deaths are deepening the existing poverty in Zimbabwe. The disease strikes in the prime of the working lives, and the combination of the loss of income and the cost of caring for the sick has been a devastating blow to millions of households rendering them destitute. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Poverty Report 1998 says "coping with the associated health, social and economic impacts of the epidemic absorbs the already scare resources and renders more and more people destitute." Zimbabwe is ranked among the most HIV-infected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that about 1000 people die of Aids and related illness every week and Zimbabwe will have about 600 000 orphans by the year 2000. With the disintegration of the extended family the orphans will end up in the streets, as no one would be prepared to look after them. They will increase the number of street children in the country currently estimated at 10 000. As the government struggles to cater for needy people in the country, more people are turning to churches and non-governmental organisations for help. Rev. Simukayi Mutamangira of the Anglican Church in Harare whose church runs a feeding scheme for the homeless, says the number of destitutes increase on a daily basis and the trend is set to continue because "our economic situation is in bad shape." Mutamangira, also the Dean of the Anglican Church, says although most of destitutes are elderly people some are street children who deliberately run away from home when their parents cannot feed them. According to Rev. Mutamangira, his church feeds an average of 150 destitutes a day but the number fluctuates because they "are sometimes rounded up by the police and put to no-one knows where." He adds: "The situation in Harare is quite bad. The government should do something about it because it is getting out of hand. It should seek lasting solutions to the problem not temporary ones."
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