| |
Back to Index
Poverty
contrasts with luxury in Zimbabwe
Angus Shaw, Associated Press (AP)
May 27, 2006
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=14458
Harare, Zimbabwe
- As impoverished Zimbabweans hunkered down for a biting winter,
business tycoon Philip Chiyangwa unveiled his latest acquisition
- a car that rolls off the assembly line at nearly $200 000.
A blaze of publicity surrounded the car this week in a country where
public utilities are collapsing and thousands of families, homeless
because of a government slum clearance operation last year, face
night temperatures plunging to near freezing.
The contrast
between the wealth of the few, symbolised by the politically influential
Chiyangwa, and the crushing poverty of the many "is entirely symptomatic
of the state of the economy and governance," said Mike Davies, an
official of the Combined
Harare Ratepayers Association, a civic group. "This is a case
of telling those hungry for bread to eat cake. People are flaunting
their wealth in the face of massive poverty and deprivation," Davies
said. State media pointed out the value of the car "could create
employment for hundreds of people roaming the streets," but added
that owners of luxury cars insisted they bought them only after
creating successful businesses that provided jobs.
Chiyangwa, a
Harare property developer and former ruling party politician, seemed
to revel in the attention drawn by his top of the range German-built
Mercedes S600. With all its extras, including navigation, entertainment
and telephone and Internet systems, along with import duties, the
asking price at a Harare showroom was close to $500 000, dealers
said. "The businesses that I have demand such a car. In business,
how you present yourself, dress and all that surrounds you, matters,"
Chiyangwa told reporters earlier this week. Fashion pages in the
state media have described the tycoon as one of Zimbabwe's best
dressed men, his ties, shoes and accessories colour-coordinated
by computer.
Other Zimbabweans
have more elementary concerns, coping with inflation pegged by the
government at 1 043 percent, the highest rate in the world, record
unemployment of more than 70 percent and acute shortages of food,
gasoline and imports. The National Water Authority on Tuesday announced
water rationing across Harare, blaming shortages of imported spare
parts for broken pumping equipment that remained unrepaired. Faucets
ran dry in several suburbs last weekend as the price of water was
set to increase eight-fold in the crumbling economy.
Lengthy power
outages, also blamed on hard currency shortages for equipment and
imports, occur daily. The Combined Harare Ratepayers Association
said new water and power shortages were a further threat to public
health in a city already hit by increasing cases of dysentery, deaths
from the diarrhoeal disease cholera this year and collapsing medical
and garbage collection services. Fungayi Mati, an accountant in
the middle class Newlands suburb, said most mornings his family
battled amid power and water outages to wash, cook and prepare for
school, where fees have more than doubled in the current term. "The
strain is becoming unbearable. I would be ashamed to drive a car
like that. I'm surprised people are not throwing stones at it,"
he said of Chiyangwa's new purchase. Day school fees for a 12-week
term for his son went up to ZIM$45-million (about R3 000) this year,
he said. Some of his son's friends had not been admitted to class
on Monday because their parents couldn't pay the fees, he said.
"None of it makes any sense to me," he said.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
