Back to Index

Zimbabwe Experience - Part 1
André Carrel
October 19, 2007

http://andrecarrel.com/cms/modules/news/article.php?storyid=111

I have found that people are usually much more moved by economics than by morals.
- Norah Phillips

I visited Zimbabwe a dozen times from 1992 to 2002 while working on a CIDA funded program to help develop rural local government. Once hailed as southern Africa's breadbasket, Zimbabwe has fallen on hard times, and I decided to make a return visit to spend some time with my friends. I spent one month in Zimbabwe listening to their stories and observing. This is the first in a series of five columns on what I found.

Fuel shortages were already a problem in Zimbabwe during my last visit five years ago. Many gas stations then displayed crude "Sorry, No Petrol" signs. Those that still had petrol were easily recognized by queues of waiting vehicles, their drivers hoping to get to the pumps before the station's tanks ran dry again.

This time, from the airport in Harare to my destination in the Eastern Highlands (a distance of 350 km), not a single gas station had fuel for sale. Not one. Some stations were abandoned; others were still open, attempting to generate meager revenues from the sale of tea leaves and matches. Traffic was down to a trickle, a minuscule fraction of what it used to be. Where do the few vehicles still on the road get their fuel?

Fuel for the military and police is rationed, but the government provides fuel to high-ranking officials and to the upper echelon of ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe's ruling party) at highly subsidized prices. The few businesses still able to export product earn limited foreign currency with which they import fuel for their own use. NGOs operating in Zimbabwe receive the fuel they need directly from their sources abroad. But how do ordinary people, those without a possibility of earning foreign currency, get fuel when none is available from gas stations? The answer, of course, is the black market. There is big money to be made by smuggling commodities such as sugar across the rugged, mountainous border to Mozambique and trading it there for canisters of gasoline and diesel to be brought back into Zimbabwe. The same trails used 30 years ago to smuggle guerrillas and their weapons from Mozambique into Zimbabwe to fight the liberation war against the white regime of Ian Smith are now used to smuggle fuel into the country ravaged by Robert Mugabe and his klepto-cronies.

The hallmarks of black market transactions are trust and deceit. A friend's experience was characterized by deceit. In desperate need of fuel, my friend found a dealer (unknown to him) who offered him a 20-litre container of diesel. The dealer pocketed the money, dropped the fuel container, and quickly disappeared. My friend had barely picked up the canister when he was stopped by a uniformed Zimbabwe Republican Police (ZRP) officer who had appeared out of thin air to demand proof that the fuel had been legally purchased. My friend was unable to provide such proof. The ZRP officer confiscated the fuel and warned my friend that, this time only, he would not be charged. The officer walked off with the fuel and, without attempting to conceal the transaction, handed the canister back to the dealer. The dealer then went about to find a new customer. Public-private partnership - Zimbabwe style!

My black market fuel purchase, fortunately, was characterized by trustworthiness. I met a Zimbabwean expatriate friend in a London restaurant. The price of fuel in England at the time was just under £1.00 (Can$2.00) per litre. She offered to arrange a supply of fuel at half that price for me in Zimbabwe. I gave her £400.00 and asked her to make arrangements for two fuel deliveries: one delivery to be made immediately and one at a future date. I then boarded my flight to Johannesburg where I transferred to a flight to Harare. The person who met me at the airport in Harare already had two 45-gallon drums full of fuel loaded on his pickup when I cleared customs! This was the first lot of the fuel I had purchased less than 24 hours earlier in London!

My London friend paid half the money I had given her to a dealer in London and advised him of the identity of the person who would pick up the fuel in Harare. She then called her contact in Zimbabwe, who, in turn, called my friend who was to pick me up and gave him the fuel delivery instructions. My friend reported to the designated location in Harare where he identified himself and provided details of the London transaction (amount, date, and time of payment). The information was verified in a matter of minutes; he was handed a voucher and given directions to the fuel depot where his two drums were filled without question or delay.

I was astonished by the sophistication of the global black market in fuel! It gave me a hint about the ease of buying and selling weapons, ammunitions, illicit drugs, and even human beings. The next column will be about dealing with money when inflation exceeds 8,000 percent.

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