My family has a bit of a chequered history when it comes to longevity. My mother’s family seems to live a long time or much less – there’s no middle ground. My mother died at 67 from cancer, he elder brother in his 70’s from another type of cancer and her oldest brother, Anthony, at 94 from old age. My father was an only child and was murdered at 53. His father is unknown and I have no idea what his mother’s age was when she died. My sister died four years ago at 62.
My mother’s younger sister turned 95 on the 4th of April and is in rude health. She still lives by herself (though has domestic servants and a tenant who rents a flat in part of the house) and gets around just fine on two walking sticks, though she doesn’t drive. Her mind is still super-sharp.
Yesterday we had a general gathering at her house to celebrate her birthday. It was a sizeable gathering and the weather co-operated, just. On arriving home Marianne, who’d had emergency work issues to deal with, told me that there had been 38mm of rain which is unusual for April.
Helen has always been passionate about her horses. That’s Kylie, a grandchild standing.
I wouldn’t mind living to 95 if I could be as independent as my aunt; it’s not going to happen. Another 30 years, hmm, I don’t think I want that – just getting up out of a chair requires me to take unnatural concentration. When it comes to the end of her life my aunt confessed to Janine, her daughter, that she wants to “wake up dead”. Don’t we all.
This is Claire. Claire is 78 and still teaching ballet. I am approaching 65 and not remotely as able as she is. Of course I have a few extra physical problems being a paraplegic that make me wonder just what life will be like when I get to 78. I am not looking forward to it though that’s easy to say from the safety of my age. 13 years ago 65 was too far away to be of much concern; that’s not to say I didn’t think about it, I just wasn’t able to envisage what life would be like.
Getting old in Zimbabwe is especially problematic. Nobody is going to look after you if you don’t have the money or children and that’s not a given. The state certainly won’t help. You’d better have made a plan and Marianne and I don’t really have one. We do have a two bedroom cottage in the garden which we rent out and when the time comes we’ll move in there and rent out our house. If, or when (if I live long enough), Marianne or I need care we are going to have to make an uncomfortable decision. I am sort of hoping that I will not live that long but talking about one’s death is easy until it actually looms. Given the state of the driving in Zimbabwe it might well happen sooner rather than later. This afternoon on the way to a function we had to take evasive action after an oncoming pickup truck decided to overtake into our lane.
Marianne went this week to see a potential customer for the medical insurance she sells. An elderly lady with glaucoma, she lives in a rented flat in a nearby retirement complex. The management had told her that she would have to give up her accommodation and move into the frail care section. She was incensed and in the end decided to move to her children in South Africa. At least she had the option.
Old age has a checkered relationship with my family. My father was murdered in the Rhodesian war at 52 (he broke the rules and paid the ultimate price) and my mother died at 67 from a misdiagnosed melanoma. My sister died at 62 but my aunt (mother’s sister) turns 95 next month and is bright as a button and still lives in her own house 25 minutes away with a couple of domestic servants to help her. Her oldest brother lived to be 94 and, while still mentally active, ended his days miserable in a care home in the UK. Her other brother died of cancer in his 70s.
Last year after a series of “seizures” I underwent a battery of medical tests. They showed nothing untoward and the physician held up my results of the neck scans on my blood vessels and remarked; “Well, whatever eventually kills you it won’t be your heart – you have the vascular system of a teenager!”. I wasn’t sure if I was pleased or not. A number of friends over the years have succumbed to heart disease and from what I have heard it’s not a bad way to go. Here one moment, gone the next. Dementia and it’s variations; now that DOES scare me! The seizures, episodes of confusion and disorientation, were eventually put down to post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) which was likely caused by the heavy general anaesthetic I’d received whilst undergoing lower back surgery, as a result of the original war injury, two years ago. The physician told me it could last up to two years.
The two years is up next month and the seizures have continued unabated. They come in clusters every six or eight weeks and can be very worrying. After a particularly intense one where I asked Marianne what the name of one of our dogs was and then couldn’t remember where a computer shop was near a bank I use, I decided it was time to go back to the physician. He listened to my account of the seizures, asked questions, and then said “That sounds a lot like temporal lobe epilepsy and, given the fact that last year’s scans showed up no abnormalities, I don’t have any idea what could have caused it”. I have been prescribed medication but it will take some time to work up to the full dose and then see if it works. Worldwide there are an estimated 50 million sufferers of the condition.
My mobility is dismal. After university I cycled across France, Switzerland and Germany then back to the UK (see Reflections on the first half). Then I went traveling around the world. I needed a walking stick and I could carry my own backpack and was independent. Now I need two walking sticks and if I fall over I struggle to get up again without help. I am very glad I went traveling whilst I could. I have come to accept that I am going to need a wheelchair in the near future. I customer did send me some photos of an electric golf cart which he thought might be useful for me to get around in at work but I thought it over the top.
I was never very concerned about falling over until Karole came to visit me at work recently. She was in the St Giles rehabilitation centre at the same time I was – she’d fallen off a horse and sustained spinal injuries that left her with a disability similar to mine. Having spurned walking sticks for years she now uses one and recounted how getting into her car recently she’d fallen over and fractured a hip. She showed me the X-ray, it was spectacular. It’s made me much more cautious to the point of paranoia which is not helpful.
I also met Terry in St Giles. He’d been paralysed in a military parachuting accident and, unlike me, had totally lost the use of his legs. We became good friends and he used to tease me and say that I was just a “weekend para”.
Terry – my paraplegic friend
Also unlike Terry, I don’t suffer constant pain. Some days are bad though and I do remember the pain-free days, but in general I don’t have major issues. I do go to the gym four days a week, two under the supervision of a physiotherapist cum trainer, to try and slow down the rot but that’s all it does. For the moment I will rely on my dog Themba to keep me a bit younger.
“If you come back this way, please come and stay” were Hazel’s parting words as we got into the pickup. She was clearly lonely.
Hazel has been farming by herself for the last 14 years since her husband died. It’s a dairy farm some five km south of the small farming town of Chipinge in the south-east of Zimbabwe and the warm, wet climate is ideal for growing horticultural crops such as macadamia nuts and avocados. We had driven the six hours from Harare, stopping overnight in Mutare, so that I could take part in an avocado field day on a large horticultural estate organized by my business partner. Once the field day was over, I drove back through the town to where I’d left Marianne at Hazel’s farm where we’d booked in overnight.
Hazel’s garden reflecting the lush climate
After a delicious dinner we poured more wine and got down to serious chatting. Hazel and her husband had moved onto the farm in the mid 1970s, newly married and not much to their name. They braved out the Rhodesian (as Zimbabwe was known then) bush war, surviving a rocket attack on the farmhouse. A rocket burst in the room where Hazel was sheltering and the shrapnel peppered everything around her but left her unscathed. Gradually the house grew with a young family. Hazel’s husband, “Duff”, insisted that his children learn the local Ndau language and encouraged his son to explore the local bush with his black friend Johan, who is now Hazel’s senior foreman. “They were given free reign” Hazel said “with the express understanding that whatever they shot they had to eat”.
“Duff never really told me what he did during the war years” Hazel said, “just that they made use of his knowledge of local customs and the language”. Duff had known that they were on a list of targets though, and after independence in 1980 he got a call from the local police station and was informed that they’d arrested someone who had admitted being behind the attack on Duff and Hazel’s house. Duff spoke to the captive and asked him why they were attacked and the reply was just “Hey, it was war, let’s go and have a beer together sometime”.
I asked Hazel if dairy farming was profitable. “No, not really” she replied. The area where she farms does not have a lot of surface water so irrigated pastures are not feasible which requires her to supplement grazing with stock feed which is expensive. The milk she produces goes to a nearby factory as industrial milk. The factory also tests for fat content on which the price is based and she was more than a little suspicious of price manipulation as a result.
Hazel’s farm location
Noticing that Hazel’s farm was close to a safari area and the Mozambique border I asked if she saw much game. “Yes, we are on a migration route” she replied. “Just two weeks ago a local woman was gored by a buffalo. I don’t know if she survived”. Just prior to that two lions were seen, and fearing they’d start preying on local livestock the National Parks authorities decided to have them shot. Hazel asked why they couldn’t be darted and taken back to the Save Conservancy. She was told that unfortunately once they’d learnt a route they’d continue to use it. “It was so sad, they were beautiful young males with just a beginning of a mane” she said.
The next day we left after breakfast. The town of Chipinge has little to recommend it – there are three traffic lights of which only one works and that is mostly ignored, but it did have a fuel station with a brand name we recognized so took the opportunity to fill up with diesel. Then it was onto the winding road on the escarpment that joins up with the road to Chimanimani – a village to the north – and back on the busy road to Harare. We hope Hazel will look us up on her occasional visits to Harare.
The view from the Skyline road junction on the way to Chimanimani
I am starting this while waiting for guests to arrive for lunch – my wife is an inveterate entertainer so needs little excuse to get friends around and of course today is a holiday so that’s what we are doing. Not sure when I’ll get to finish…
It’s an el Niño year so rainfall has been erratic so far; a heavy fall in October and then nothing for six weeks so crops are not looking great for those who don’t have irrigation available. There is a lot of fuss and bother in the various weather groups on various social media platforms whenever rain is forecast and then much soul searching when it doesn’t happen. People forget that forecasting is far more accurate than a few years back, even in this part of the world, and that hey, we get droughts in southern Africa! We have had 3 good years in succession and are due a drought, so all is normal in that respect.
I guess I could be cynical and say that the incompetence and corruption that we see all around us are also just about normal for this part of the world too. The road to my work is being resurfaced as we speak, and we are delighted but I fear there is an ulterior motive. The President has an interest in a housing development out beyond my business, and I think that is a prime motivation. Just by chance it goes past a big rubbish tip project that one of his sons has taken over. It looks like it’s being run properly, now we just need to get the city council to collect our garbage on a regular basis. Roads elsewhere in the city are in a dismal state and it’s not uncommon for local communities to take up the challenge and fill in the potholes on their own initiative.
I have just read in an article in The Economist that Indonesia built 300,000km of roads in the last 10 years. It is of course a vast country, bigger than the USA, but there’s an example here that our government could follow.
Zimbabwe is still in the bizarre situation of having two currencies: our own dollar and the US dollar. The local dollar is treated with contempt by all except the government who have just brought out a proposed budget with LOTS of zeros involved (the street rate for conversion is around 7,000 local dollars to the US dollar – officially it’s 6,000). Various members of parliament refused to vote for the budget to pass unless, amongst other demands, they got new 4×4 Toyota Landcruisers so that they could get over bad roads to visit their constituents. Nobody pointed out that the roads were such a mess in the first place due to the inefficiency and corruption. Fortunately, there were other bad ideas in the proposed budget that were also ditched – an annual tax on houses over a value of US$100,000 being one of them. Who was going to do the valuation was never revealed and quite how they were going to get around bribing the evaluators was not discussed either.
My business plods along. It pays the bills and that’s about all. We are charging less than we were in 2014 largely due to the proliferation of small seedling nurseries around town whose quality is dismal and who almost certainly don’t pay tax and cut a lot of other corners, but we cannot compete with their prices. I suspect a lot of people either don’t know what a quality seedling is or don’t care. Our core customers are commercial farmers and I think most of them do appreciate our commitment to quality – well that’s what one told me last week!
Of greater concern is a building project encompassing two neighboring farms in the form of a giant wall. The farms have been “acquired” by Grace Mugabe, wife of the late president, and word is she wants to have a 700-house project built on the enclosed 400ha. The wall is quite something (it has been nicknamed The Great Wall of Pomona after the area) – it’s not visible from space but is from 5,000m altitude on Google Earth. It is 3m high, has a reinforced concrete core and a course of bricks on the outside and inside. I asked a constructor what it might cost, and he suggested US$300-400 per metre. Given that the whole structure is 9km long that’s at least $27 million! The enclosed area is a rough rectangle but the property on which my business is located is a triangle jutting into the northeast corner. The big question is: what will they do when they get to the triangle, will they go around (an extra 500m), or will the wall cut the triangle off? Grace Mugabe is close to the President so wields disproportionate power and probably could just take the property if she felt like it. Perhaps she will force my landlady to sell the property, so she gets the title deeds? We will find out within the next 3 months or so when the wall will get to our boundary.
Despite the poor performance of the Zimbabwe economy the building sector is booming. Likely it’s due to money laundering. Al Jazeera TV did a documentary series (“Gold Mafia” in 4 parts) on this and explained that gold was being exported illegally, mainly to Dubai, by politically well-connected fat cats who were then bringing the cash back with the tacit approval of the President who is taking a 15% cut. The money is then invested in construction projects. Indeed, the suburbs are thick with construction projects of various descriptions – apartments, shopping centres, restaurants – which are often approved without the consent of residents. One of my cousins is in a street which is fighting the proposed construction of a Chinese restaurant. The Chinese are our friends so it’s almost a given that they will get permission.
We are cursed in this country with a wealth of minerals, especially gold. It’s just about everywhere you care to dig. My brother came out from the UK in October and as part of our travels we took a trip through the village where my mother lived after my father’s death. It was established as a gold mining area at the end of the 19th century. The commercial scale miners have long since moved on but the small-scale miners are everywhere and the place is a rubbish tip. One can only but wonder about the mercury pollution and mining safety. Health and safety are not concepts they care about.
The countryside is still largely beautiful. We got invited to an old school friend’s safari camp on the Zambezi River in Mana Pools National Park. I guess it’s about 200km downstream of Kariba Dam. While the game was not as plentiful as it usually is at that time of year due to unseasonal rains, we still had a great time in a beautiful part of the country. Drifting down the Zambezi in canoes at sunset was memorable – crocs and hippos notwithstanding!
An evening drift down the Zambezi River
Earlier this year I had a bit of an “episode” early one morning. I can’t remember much about it but thought I should go to my doctor about it. She thought it was probably just what is known as Transient General Amnesia (TGA) but given my age thought it worth a spate of tests just in case it was something else. I had mentioned it to some friends of roughly my age and they both said they’d experienced it. Indeed, after much prodding, imaging and blood taking that conclusion was reached. The physician at the final consultation was impressed with the state of my health, structural issues notwithstanding, and commented; “Well, whatever kills you in the end it won’t be your heart!”. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not – I am of the age now that how I “go” has become a subject of some importance and going quickly is the preferred option.
The degeneration of the structural issues necessitated a lower spine operation in April. It was deemed successful by the surgeon, but it necessitated 3 weeks of bed rest which have had a lasting effect on my mobility. The general anaesthetic also had a lasting effect in the form of POCD (post-operative cognitive dysfunction) which also causes episodes – a sense of disconnecting with the world which the physician said would eventually pass.
It’s New Year’s Eve now and fortunately it has stopped raining! Such is the erratic nature of the climate we find our selves in. The experts tell us it’s all symptomatic of climate change i.e. it’s becoming more extreme though I’d hesitate to attribute a few days of exceptional weather to that just yet.
So, what can we expect from the New Year? You have and election coming up, the Olympic Games are in Paris, the war will continue in Ukraine – the cynical French expression plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose does come to mind!
It had to be a mistake, I couldn’t possibly owe the tax department (ZIMRA – Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) that amount. Even if I converted it to US dollars it would amount to an impossible figure – about 17,500 at the unofficial rate and 23,000 at the bank rate. I checked the email address – it was from a person with whom I’ve corresponded over the years. Then there was the wording; FINAL DEMAND. Where were the other demands? I did what any sensible person would have done and contacted my bookkeeper in a state of panic.
Alison was more than a bit puzzled but told me she couldn’t do anything without seeing how they’d got the figures. “Your are entitled to see what’s going on” she said. “Ask them for the ledger”
The last part of the ledger
The ledger was duly sent and the waters immediately became a lot murkier. It stated the figures were in US dollars and the numbers, if the currency was US dollars, were impossible. I sent it on to Alison. It was a while before she came back to me by which time my imagination had run riot. What if I really did owe 105 million dollars? I would have to buy it on the open market with my US dollars and would be left with no operating capital and nothing with which to pay wages. The company would be unlikely to survive.
Alison assured me that the figures on the ledger were Zimbabwe dollars and I probably did owe the 3,835,807 listed. She had no idea where the 105 million came from. “Ask them” she said. So I did.
The reply was abrupt; the 105 million was to be ignored (RTGS is another way of saying Zimbabwe dollars). The amount on the ledger was also incorrect as it didn’t account for some US$550 that I’d paid in presumptive tax (they are called Quarterly Payment Due or just QPD) which would have reduced the amount owed close to zero.
I speculated to Marianne that it was all just a bit of psychological bullying to get me to pay attention to the outstanding amount, then two days ago I bumped into Gary whose wife had had a strikingly similar experience.
Gary works for a seed company that occasionally uses my nursery to grow seedlings for various trials. They have a trial on ART Farm which is a neighbour to my nursery and I sometimes use it access my nursery so as to avoid the appalling direct road and take in a bit of soothing farm scenery on the way. Gary was having a look at one of their trials near the road so I stopped to chat.
We discussed various things then I related my experience with the tax authority. He said that Clare, his wife who works as a bookkeeper for a local church, had received a final letter of demand for payment from ZIMRA for an impossible amount about three months ago. She replied that as a church they were not liable for tax and any money made was given away to various charities and nothing more was heard. He agreed with me that as the government was desperate for money it was likely endorsing ZIMRA’s intimidation tactics to get in whatever money they could, maybe they were even giving a commission.
On getting to work I related the story to my senior foremen. They were decidedly cynical. “They are all on the take” opined Chingedzerai. “Yes”, added Fabian, “they see the rest of the government officials stealing and think that they should have some of the pie too. They see what they can bully you into paying and then split the extra between themselves”. It was obvious that they thought I was being naïve.
Marianne had been doing some questioning of her own and posted my problem on the local community WhatsApp group. Someone had responded with a name and phone number of a senior official at ZIMRA whom he thought would be able to help. I gave him a call and related my problem and asked if it was official ZIMRA policy to send out threatening demands based on nothing much at all. His indifference was striking; I should send him a copy of all the correspondence and documents and he’d forward it to the relevant manager. I duly sent him the copies but I am not expecting a reply.
It’s no secret that Zimbabwe is in deep financial trouble. Mismanagement, corruption and incompetence have seen our GDP plunge after the Mnangagwa government took power in a coup back in 2017.
At the time it was welcomed by the majority of the population who were relieved to be rid of the much hated and feared Mugabe regime but it was not long before the new government of E D Mnangagwa revealed its true colours of repression and corruption. Chingedzerai reminded me that the current administration has never bothered to investigate the estimated US$15 billion worth of diamonds that went unaccounted for from the Chiadzwa diamond fields in the east of the country in the latter part of the Mugabe era. More recently there was the gold smuggling exposé by al Jazeera that showed how top Zimbabwean officials were, with the highest approval, smuggling gold out of Zimbabwe and laundering the resulting cash. Indeed, for a country that is struggling financially, there is an eye-opening amount of property development around town. In the past this would have attracted the attention of ZIMRA who would have demanded to see the accounts of owners of expensive properties and made to account for the development. Now it’s easier, and more personally profitable, to send out threatening letters.
I paid wages on Tuesday. We chose the date years ago when getting cash from the bank at the end of the month meant enduring long queues and not getting the desired breakdown. Chingedzerai had heard the income tax limits had been increased and asked me to check on the internet before he entered the attendance and overtime figures on the computer. I was fairly sure it was only the Zimbabwe dollar tables that had changed but checked on the US dollar tables anyway (I have been paying my staff in the latter currency since August last year).
In Zimbabwe salaries are taxed monthly and the system is known by its acronym PAYE; Pay As You Earn. The rates are iniquitous. Wages are taxed from US$100 per month upwards! Given that the minimum agricultural wage starts at US$60 before any of the required allowances, most of my staff are taxed. Some do get age exemptions but the rest of them have to endure.
Such is the government’s demand for money that it has taken to taxing money transfers at 2% per transfer. It goes without saying that most transactions are cash though it’s not always possible. The government used to tax cash withdrawals from banks but gave up when it became evident that people were simply not depositing cash in order to avoid paying the tax.
Given the high cost of living and taxation in Zimbabwe one would assume that the majority of the population would be keen for a change of government. Indeed, given that we had a general and presidential election on Wednesday, one could be forgiven for thinking it imminent. With the recent exception of Zambia, southern African is not known for changing its governments and Zimbabwe is not about to become an exception too.
My foremen and I were all in agreement on this; the incumbent ZANU-PF party, which has maintained its grip on power since 1980 by means mostly foul, will certainly cheat its way to victory; only the level of the fiddle is not known. So far it’s been “limited” to delaying delivering voting papers to polling stations in regions known to be opposition strongholds, sending voters to polling stations where they found they weren’t registered, making sure one couldn’t check the online registration database and of course blatant intimidation. Few, if any, believe the logistical problems to be anything but deliberate. We remain cynical.
Frost and frosty breath – a rare cold morning this year
We live in the sub-tropics and experience a climate modified by altitude so rarely get very cold winters. They tend to be dry and dusty – the rains come from mid-November to March. While snow very occasionally occurs in Zimbabwe and is worth a photo opportunity frost is not at all uncommon, especially on the central watershed, but this year it has been rare. It has been a very mild winter so far with some daytime maxima reaching 280C and nighttime minima of 7 or more. So far there have been no overcast and cold days caused by cold fronts that come up from the Antarctic. What is going on and what does it mean for the rainy season?
Droughts are endemic to southern Africa and are most likely when an el Nino event appears off the Ecuador coast. This is a warm current and has a global effect on the weather; for us it’s drought. Usually.
Temperature variations off the Ecuadorian coast since 1982. Red is el Nino, blue la Nina.
A cooling of the sea surface is known as a la Nina and in this part of the world is characterised by wetter than normal years. The chart above indicates that the last three years have been wetter than normal though Harare did not experience this – in fact rainfall records at my business showed lower than average rainfall whereas other parts of the country did indeed experience a wetter than average summer. The memorable drought of 1992 is evident in that season’s el Nino event.
The ENSO forecast for ’23/’24 showing a very high probability of a el Nino event.
This el Nino event very likely means a drought for the coming summer. Harare, where I live, is increasingly dependent on boreholes to supply domestic water and over the years the average depth at which water can be found has steadily increased as water is extracted. With all the ongoing construction within the city area more and more water runs off into the streams and the ground water is replenished less. A drier then usual season is not good news.
Two years ago we took the plunge and had a deeper borehole drilled on our premises. We were lucky and found water. Though not in large quantity it has been sufficient for our needs since then. How it will be affected by what promises to be a dry few years remains to be seen. My commercial seedling nursery will be affected likewise. We wait in trepidation.
The bundles of 500 notes in bank wrappers were commonly known as bricks in 2008. Now it’s 2023 and they’re back!
The senior foreman said the customer wanted to pay in Zimbabwe dollars, cash, were we going to accept them? We didn’t have much of a choice as it is legal tender so I said yes and asked how much it was. 67,000 he replied. I groaned knowing they would be in small denominations. The biggest, $50, is worth all of US2.2c so I knew there would be quite a few bundles but the majority were $20 notes. We filled a medium-sized box.
Quite a few were in bank-sealed plastic bags of 500 notes which were called “bricks” back in the hyper inflation days of 2008. We didn’t bother counting them then and didn’t bother now. Back in those days the government attempted to get around the problem by printing ever larger denomination notes (an example is in the picture). Our inflation now is not quite that bad but anyway, local currency notes have largely been superseded by electronic money. It’s very easy to add zeros onto electronic money.
The other currency in Zimbabwe that is also legal tender is the US dollar. Having nothing to do with the government it is by far the most preferred. Although the government tries to set the exchange rate and can prosecute those not using it there is an easy work-around. It goes like this: the official rate is 1,097 Zimbabwe dollars to US$1 and with a few exceptions, fuel being one of them, businesses have to quote their prices in the local currency. On the unofficial market the rate is currently around 2,200 to one US dollar depending on to whom one is talking. Businesses price their goods in the Zimbabwe dollar and then offer a fat discount if you want to pay in US dollars – this effectively brings the official rate up to the unofficial one and it’s completely legal. Many businesses don’t bother with the official rate and just quote the unofficial one. My business is one of them and so far there hasn’t been a comeback.
There is a sense on around town that the unofficial rate is running again and people are offloading their Zimbabwe dollars. I sent the driver into town the day following the above deposit to get rid of the cash. In reality it was about US$30 so didn’t go far but I managed to find a fertilizer company accepting them and topped up with a bit of electronic money in the form of a debit card we managed to get a meaningful amount of agricultural chemicals bought.
The government is of course also looking for a dependable currency and has hit on tax as the easiest way to get in US dollars. All US$ cash deposits are levied at 20% and the government reimburses the amount in Zimbabwe dollars – at the official rate! This means that in reality the recipient can be losing 10% or more of the deposit in real terms. Exporters are levied 40% of the amount remitted to their forex accounts. It gets better; 3% of all USD cash withdrawals from a bank are taxed. While one can still pay car licence fees and other government levies in the local currency the sense is that it cannot last.
The local Reserve Bank has an idea to shore up the local currency; digital tokens backed by gold. It won’t work – the population’s trust in the government has long since evaporated. There is nothing new about digital currency in Zimbabwe but my staff for one will only be interested in the greenback.
Zimbabwean medical technology can be surprisingly advanced – if you can afford it. This is a Holter ECG recorder.
“Enjoy getting the sensor off your chest” the nurse said and smirked. I didn’t share the humour and suspected this was why she said that shaving my chest before attaching the Holter ECG was unnecessary. At least she had a sense of humour.
I was strongly beginning to suspect the whole exercise was a waste of time and a not inconsiderable amount of money. The specialist physician who’d done the ECG and echo cardiogram had already said that all was normal as far as he could see and that only the MRI angiogram scheduled for the following week might show something. I left $810 poorer.
Last Friday morning at 4 a.m. I had to get up to go to the bathroom. When I got back to bed I asked Marianne what the bandage on my left ankle was for. It has been there four months for an ulcer. Not surprisingly she was concerned. The next three hours were a blank for me but apparently I repeatedly asked about the bandage and looked at my computer programming work and apparently recognized it. I have a vague recollection of asking who my doctor was and where the practice is located (which I have been visiting for years). When we visited the GP later that morning I asked Marianne to come with me just in case I missed something (not that I’d have had a choice!). We emerged 20 minutes later, blood sample taken and with a long list of tests to be done. It looked expensive.
Access to the Zimbabwe medical system requires a subscription to medical insurance and frequently quite large sums of cash as US dollars. The latter is often referred to as a “co-payment” which is another way of saying that “you pay us up front and then claim back from your medical aid/insurance company as we don’t have the patience to deal with their habitually late payments”.
First appointment was with a technician who was working out of his home with an EEG in his spare room/office. He told me that I most certainly had not experienced a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) otherwise known as a mini stroke and relieved me of $200. I noticed that he was fond of his dog so forgave him – mostly.
I haven’t seen the test results for the 72 hour Holter ECG yet but I guess they will arrive in due course. The record sheet that I had to fill in detailing any “out of the ordinary” experiences I left blank. There weren’t any.
Yesterday was the turn of a MRI-A (A is for angiogram) in my brain. I had to get there at 7.30 in the morning and forgoing my morning coffee – MRIs have a way of going on for a long time and I suspect the operators would have been unimpressed if I said I needed to use the toilet – I headed out early taking a big mental breath to deal with the morning traffic. It was all a non-event. I arrived early and one of the staff agreed that the traffic was unusually light. The MRI machine was new and made by Canon, the camera manufacturer. It only took 30 minutes then I was off to the Doppler ultra-sound of my neck vessels at another clinic occupied by the same company in another part of town.
They relieved me of $105 (yes, all fees were mentioned in advance and nobody mentioned the local currency – US dollars only) and then after a short wait it was into the examination room. I could just see the screen placed on the opposite wall for my convenience. The technician was not very communicative but did say he could see no problems. The machine made all the right heart noises too.
Now I have to go and see a specialist physician after the long Easter weekend. He will take $100 (he’s seen me before else he would take $200). He has a bit of a dour reputation but was also my physician for the back surgery a year ago and was very kind not charging for hospital visits once he knew I’d been injured in the Rhodesian bush war. “Because of people like you Mr Roberts, people like me got to go to medical school”.
I do have another off-shore medical aid scheme based in South Africa which will reimburse at least some of the costs. However they will only pay what the procedure or tests cost in South Africa which is often considerably less than in Zimbabwe. I’ll have to wait and see.
So what was it that I experienced? My sister-in-law Jane, who lives in the UK and is a better Googler than me, sent me this link which accurately describes it. It’s called TGA or transient global amnesia. It happens, it’s not serious and there’s nothing one can do about it.
On the way back from the gym this afternoon I drove past the local municipal clinic. Once a part of the primary medical care system designed as a first port of call for the average Zimbabwean citizen without access to medical insurance it is now nearly derelict. The gates don’t shut, there was one vehicle parked inside and not a soul to be seen. The last time it was used was for Covid vaccinations and that was sponsored by the WHO and other agencies.
Our weather has become increasingly erratic over the last 15 years or so. I put it down to climate change. Right now we are in the middle of a relatively normal rainy season. That means that the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) moves over the country and it rains – quite a lot. Most of our rains happen from mid November to the end of March which in Harare means some 700 to 800mm. The rain can be quite intense – we had 75mm (3 inches) in several hours last week which meant all the rivers around town were up and one of the reservoirs that supplies town was spilling. As a country we’ve had good rain for the last 3 years due to the la Niña effect though it has been quite variable over the country and Harare, which is in a high rainfall area, received less than average. We are due for a drought and I see that there is a el Niño predicted later in the year which is a reliable indicator.
There’s rain around as I type this and yesterday afternoon we had quite a storm with high winds and hail and of course the power went off. It’s still off but we are geared for this eventuality and have solar panels and two lithium batteries to get us through the night. Power outages for other reasons, mainly incompetence and over-use of Lake Kariba as a hydro source, are common so everyone who can has a solar backup plan. Solar water heating makes a lot of sense in our climate so we have three solar heaters, one for us, one for the cottage tenants and one on the domestic employee’s rooms. In the cloudless, hot days of August and September the water can easily boil.
The complete Zimbabwean domestic survival system: visible are two solar water heaters, two solar panel systems and rainwater collection into tanks and a swimming pool.
I see your weather has been erratic too. Mt Washington in the north-east of the USA hit a record -70C a few days back and Europe had an unseasonably warm Christmas. It seems that California has had some heavy rains too; the default weather app on my new iPad is set to the Apple headquarters in Cupertino and they had flood warnings out recently.
Planned, and I use that word loosely, power outages are called “load shedding” in this part of the world. Towards the end of last year it was announced that Lake Kariba, which is our major source of hydro power, had got to it’s minimum level permitted for generation due to over-use by the Zimbabwe power authority and load shedding would become a daily occurrence. We have another major thermal power station at Hwange in the west of the country but it has become a byword for mismanagement and cannot take up the shortfall. We also import a lot of power from Mozambique and South Africa but have managed to get into a lot of debt so the aforementioned countries are fed-up and restricting our supply. South Africa has its own power supply issues (again due to mismanagement by the state-run utility) and is also imposing load shedding but at least it sticks to a schedule. In Zimbabwe the power generally goes off in the suburbs about 6.30 a.m. and comes back on around 10 p.m. Businesses are not exempt either and incur heavy costs due to diesel generators. It’s not unusual for some to run just on night shifts.
Our swimming pool was an early casualty of the power cuts. It’s essential to keep the filter running which the solar panels can do on a sunny day but those are rare in the rainy season so it’s more green than clear these days. Marianne was muttering about the cost of more chemicals to try and clear it. I pointed out that we could always fill it in but it wouldn’t be a cheap procedure and then we’d lose some 70,000 litres of stored water that would be very useful in a drought. We have decided to live with it being more green than not (it is covered over in winter when not in use).
The book you asked about is, I think, “The Shackled Continent” by Robert Guest who was an Africa correspondent for The Economist for a number of years. I found it fascinating and very insightful. Maybe I should read it again.
My business muddles along. I have a lot of outstanding debtors and it’s not so simple as insisting that they pay up front for their orders. I hate having to get nasty but it may eventually come to getting professional debt collectors in as I need to get the money to pay for imports of the coir “peat” raw material that we use to grow the seedlings. I obviously cannot use Zimbabwe dollars but fortunately I did invoice in US dollars which once again is becoming the currency du jour. The government is still trying desperately to keep the local dollar alive but with an official exchange rate of 740 to the US dollar compared with a “parallel”, i.e. street, rate of 1,100 to the dollar, it doesn’t have much of a chance. The local currency is still used, and has to be offered, as a payment method but most outlets make it very attractive to use the US$ by offering massive discounts . Government departments don’t do this so get paid almost entirely in local currency which means they are perpetually in financial difficulties – hence the disastrous state of the power supply, roads, rail links and anything else they are involved in. Am I making sense?
The government is also trying to stifle speculation on the currency markets by lending money at vast interest rates, 110% in November 2022, which makes doing business very difficult and one of the reasons that I use to explain why my business is so flat. The other is the proliferation of competition, often informal, which cut lots of corners allowing them to undercut my prices. Their quality is dismal but people either don’t care or see it as an acceptable consequence of the cheap prices. My prices haven’t changed in four years despite the rising costs of inputs in real (US dollar) terms. It doesn’t make for attractive business. Curiously the construction business is booming with cluster homes (small, single level apartments – several to a property) and other developments being built throughout the suburbs. Quite where the money is coming from I cannot ascertain – but in an economy as moribund as ours it’s almost certainly dirty.
Yes, us Zimbabweans are a resourceful lot and I guess in that respect Diana remained true to her heritage. My workroom/office is full of junk that I cannot throw away just in case I find a use for it in years to come. It must be a hold-over from the days when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia and under sanctions so nearly everything that could be was recycled. It’s probably an attitude of my generation rather than today’s “youngsters” – I drive past a municipal rubbish tip on the way to work and there’s never a shortage of trucks pulling in to offload. I suppose people do make a living out of recycling here though it’s not as fashionable as in the developed world. An elution plant (recycling gold from electronics) has recently been constructed at the former rubbish dump. It’s also not unusual to see carts being pushed around the suburbs and having one’s gate bell being rung by the owners looking for scrap metal.
I guess our “big” news for this year is that we’re going over to the UK in May to attend a rock concert! I’ve never been to one as standing for a long time in rowdy crowds is obviously not possible for me but this is Mike & The Mechanics who are not as popular as they used to be so seating is an option. Time to tick off the bucket list.
Then we are going to stay on the Cote d’Azur with an old girlfriend and her husband for four days. Apparently we’ll be quite close to St Tropez. Marianne is keen to go and see how the ultra-rich live but I may give it a miss. Really looking forward to it and we’re brushing up our rudimentary French in anticipation.
Well, on that positive note I’ll sign off and wish you all the best for this year. Forget the snow shoveling, go skiing and may it be exceptional.
Ciao
Andrew
Note: this is a genuine reply to a friend in Washington State U.S.A. who was a good friend to my sister Diana, and helped look after her in the terminal stage of her cancer three years ago.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 
Taxed if you do, taxed if you don’t
26 08 2023It had to be a mistake, I couldn’t possibly owe the tax department (ZIMRA – Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) that amount. Even if I converted it to US dollars it would amount to an impossible figure – about 17,500 at the unofficial rate and 23,000 at the bank rate. I checked the email address – it was from a person with whom I’ve corresponded over the years. Then there was the wording; FINAL DEMAND. Where were the other demands? I did what any sensible person would have done and contacted my bookkeeper in a state of panic.
Alison was more than a bit puzzled but told me she couldn’t do anything without seeing how they’d got the figures. “Your are entitled to see what’s going on” she said. “Ask them for the ledger”
The ledger was duly sent and the waters immediately became a lot murkier. It stated the figures were in US dollars and the numbers, if the currency was US dollars, were impossible. I sent it on to Alison. It was a while before she came back to me by which time my imagination had run riot. What if I really did owe 105 million dollars? I would have to buy it on the open market with my US dollars and would be left with no operating capital and nothing with which to pay wages. The company would be unlikely to survive.
Alison assured me that the figures on the ledger were Zimbabwe dollars and I probably did owe the 3,835,807 listed. She had no idea where the 105 million came from. “Ask them” she said. So I did.
The reply was abrupt; the 105 million was to be ignored (RTGS is another way of saying Zimbabwe dollars). The amount on the ledger was also incorrect as it didn’t account for some US$550 that I’d paid in presumptive tax (they are called Quarterly Payment Due or just QPD) which would have reduced the amount owed close to zero.
I speculated to Marianne that it was all just a bit of psychological bullying to get me to pay attention to the outstanding amount, then two days ago I bumped into Gary whose wife had had a strikingly similar experience.
Gary works for a seed company that occasionally uses my nursery to grow seedlings for various trials. They have a trial on ART Farm which is a neighbour to my nursery and I sometimes use it access my nursery so as to avoid the appalling direct road and take in a bit of soothing farm scenery on the way. Gary was having a look at one of their trials near the road so I stopped to chat.
We discussed various things then I related my experience with the tax authority. He said that Clare, his wife who works as a bookkeeper for a local church, had received a final letter of demand for payment from ZIMRA for an impossible amount about three months ago. She replied that as a church they were not liable for tax and any money made was given away to various charities and nothing more was heard. He agreed with me that as the government was desperate for money it was likely endorsing ZIMRA’s intimidation tactics to get in whatever money they could, maybe they were even giving a commission.
On getting to work I related the story to my senior foremen. They were decidedly cynical. “They are all on the take” opined Chingedzerai. “Yes”, added Fabian, “they see the rest of the government officials stealing and think that they should have some of the pie too. They see what they can bully you into paying and then split the extra between themselves”. It was obvious that they thought I was being naïve.
Marianne had been doing some questioning of her own and posted my problem on the local community WhatsApp group. Someone had responded with a name and phone number of a senior official at ZIMRA whom he thought would be able to help. I gave him a call and related my problem and asked if it was official ZIMRA policy to send out threatening demands based on nothing much at all. His indifference was striking; I should send him a copy of all the correspondence and documents and he’d forward it to the relevant manager. I duly sent him the copies but I am not expecting a reply.
It’s no secret that Zimbabwe is in deep financial trouble. Mismanagement, corruption and incompetence have seen our GDP plunge after the Mnangagwa government took power in a coup back in 2017.
At the time it was welcomed by the majority of the population who were relieved to be rid of the much hated and feared Mugabe regime but it was not long before the new government of E D Mnangagwa revealed its true colours of repression and corruption. Chingedzerai reminded me that the current administration has never bothered to investigate the estimated US$15 billion worth of diamonds that went unaccounted for from the Chiadzwa diamond fields in the east of the country in the latter part of the Mugabe era. More recently there was the gold smuggling exposé by al Jazeera that showed how top Zimbabwean officials were, with the highest approval, smuggling gold out of Zimbabwe and laundering the resulting cash. Indeed, for a country that is struggling financially, there is an eye-opening amount of property development around town. In the past this would have attracted the attention of ZIMRA who would have demanded to see the accounts of owners of expensive properties and made to account for the development. Now it’s easier, and more personally profitable, to send out threatening letters.
I paid wages on Tuesday. We chose the date years ago when getting cash from the bank at the end of the month meant enduring long queues and not getting the desired breakdown. Chingedzerai had heard the income tax limits had been increased and asked me to check on the internet before he entered the attendance and overtime figures on the computer. I was fairly sure it was only the Zimbabwe dollar tables that had changed but checked on the US dollar tables anyway (I have been paying my staff in the latter currency since August last year).
In Zimbabwe salaries are taxed monthly and the system is known by its acronym PAYE; Pay As You Earn. The rates are iniquitous. Wages are taxed from US$100 per month upwards! Given that the minimum agricultural wage starts at US$60 before any of the required allowances, most of my staff are taxed. Some do get age exemptions but the rest of them have to endure.
Such is the government’s demand for money that it has taken to taxing money transfers at 2% per transfer. It goes without saying that most transactions are cash though it’s not always possible. The government used to tax cash withdrawals from banks but gave up when it became evident that people were simply not depositing cash in order to avoid paying the tax.
Given the high cost of living and taxation in Zimbabwe one would assume that the majority of the population would be keen for a change of government. Indeed, given that we had a general and presidential election on Wednesday, one could be forgiven for thinking it imminent. With the recent exception of Zambia, southern African is not known for changing its governments and Zimbabwe is not about to become an exception too.
My foremen and I were all in agreement on this; the incumbent ZANU-PF party, which has maintained its grip on power since 1980 by means mostly foul, will certainly cheat its way to victory; only the level of the fiddle is not known. So far it’s been “limited” to delaying delivering voting papers to polling stations in regions known to be opposition strongholds, sending voters to polling stations where they found they weren’t registered, making sure one couldn’t check the online registration database and of course blatant intimidation. Few, if any, believe the logistical problems to be anything but deliberate. We remain cynical.
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Tags: corruption, general election, tax, ZIMRA
Categories : Blogroll, Economics, Social commentary