70% of Zimbabweans live in poverty

70% of Zimbabweans live in poverty

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AFRICA / 26 September 2016, 9:41pm
Christopher Mahove


A banner on food distribution to get food aid during a food distribution in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe. Photo: EPA/Aaron Ufumeli





Harare - More than 70 percent of Zimbabweans are living in poverty and the government requires about $2.7 billion to implement its Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy in the next two years, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Monday.

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Speaking at the launch of the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in Harare, Chinamasa said this was despite the fact that poverty reduction had always remained government’s top priority.





“Poverty eradication strategies and interventions have always been embedded in all the economic reform programmes government has been implementing since the attainment of independence in 1980,” Chinamasa said.





“While over the years government has succeeded in halving the population in extreme poverty from 44 percent in 1995 to 22 percent in 2012, however, poverty levels as measured by the Total Consumption Poverty Line has remained high at over 70 percent.”





Chinamasa said the effects of the country’s economic crisis were mostly felt in the social sectors, where thousands were losing their jobs, children were dropping out of school and hospitals and clinics were running without adequate drugs.





“This I-PSRP, therefore, focuses on specific short term measures but with long term impact on the livelihoods of the population, in particular vulnerable segments of our society,” he said.





Chinamasa said of the required $2.7 billion, $800 million had already been raised, leaving a funding deficit of $1.9 billion. He said the bulk of the money would go towards funding agricultural production to ensure household food security.





“Proposed interventions are centred on guaranteeing food security through special maize production, enhancing productivity, expanding irrigation rehabilitation and development in view of the risks associated with climate change, providing access to sustainable and affordable capital, access to markets for agriculture commodities and revival of agricultural parastatals,” he said.





Chinamasa said strategies would also prioritise interventions in the productive sectors of manufacturing, mining, energy, information communication technology, and tourism, small to medium enterprises, inclusive banking, indigenisation and economic empowerment as well as housing among others.





The private sector, he said, should also play a big role in reducing poverty through the creation of employment.





Zimbabwe’s economy has been on its knees ever since the country embarked on a controversial land reform exercise which saw white commercial farmers brutally driven out of their farms to make way for thousands of land hungry blacks.





Millions of Zimbabweans have fled the country to neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, with others going abroad were they are doing menial jobs after industry collapsed, rendering millions jobless and hungry.


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Things got worse during the 2007 and 2008, only to be rescued by The Government of National Unity (GNU) which stabilised the economy until 2013, when Zanu PF controversially won general elections which the opposition parties disputed. The majority of the people, mostly in rural areas, are living on less than a dollar a day.

Ethiopian soap star flees to seek asylum in US

Ethiopian soap star flees to seek asylum in US


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AFRICA / 27 September 2016, 09:54am
ADAM WITHNALL






London - A prominent soap actor has fled Ethiopia to seek asylum in the US, becoming the latest high profile figure to do so in the wake of a brutal government crackdown on political opposition.





Zenah-Bezu Tsegaye is a household name as a star on one of the most popular shows on Ethiopian state TV, Sew Le Sew, and his defection to America will be seen as a serious blow to the government. The actor is from the Amhara region, which like its neighbour Oromia has been the scene of sustained clashes between protesters and state security forces.


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Zenah-Bezu has spoken out in the past about being arrested “for being Amhara”, and in a new interview with Voice of America's Amharic service said he was forced to leave Ethiopia two months ago due to “repeated harassment”.





He vowed not to return home until “the regime has changed”, according to a BBC translation of the interview. And he accused the Ethiopian security forces of “atrocious actions” in its attempts to quell protests across the two regions, which Human Rights Watch says have led to the deaths of more than 500 demonstrators. He said: ”It is sad to respond with bullets to people's demand for their rights.”





Zenah-Bezu's defection comes two days after a news conference in Washington DC where the Ethiopian athlete Feyisa Lilesa warned his country was heading for “a great tragedy” unless the international community intervenes.





Interview with Zenah-Bezu (IOL could find no English translation for this video, but provides it in the interests of completeness)











Lilesa dramatically announced he would not be returning to Ethiopia after staging a finishing line protest at the Rio Olympics, where he took silver in the men's marathon. And a month later, speaking at a hotel in the US capital, he revealed how he had always entertained the idea of fleeing the persecution experienced by his Oromo community.





“I grew up witnessing sufferings and the oppression of my people, and this has always been on my mind,” Lilesa said, according to the New York Daily News. “I knew that if I trained well, and got a good result, I would get the spotlight for a limited amount of time. I wanted to use that moment to send this message in the voice of my people.”





Lilesa's protest in Rio was followed by a similar display by men's 1,500m Paralympic athlete Tamiru Demisse a couple of weeks later. Demisse, 22, also crossed his arms as he finished the race in an “X” symbol that has become associated with the Oromia protests. Unlike Lilesa, who was ticked off by Olympic officials for bringing politics into the Games, he repeated the gesture on the medal podium. He told Brazilian TV network Globo at the time that he too wanted to seek asylum in the US. “If I go back, I’m a dead man,” he said. “I am totally against what they are doing in Ethiopia, [and I’m] against the government.”





The conflict between the government and the Oromo, the largest single ethnic group in Ethiopia, flared up last year over land and political rights. In Amhara, the clashes stem from a request by the Welkait Amhara Identity Committee to have their lands administered as part of the wider Amhara region. They are currently governed by the Tigray regional state.





In an joint letter to the UN Human Rights Council this month, rights groups said: “Since November 2015, Ethiopian security forces have routinely used excessive and unnecessary lethal force to disperse and suppress the largely peaceful protests.” The violence was particularly intense in August, when Amnesty International recorded 100 deaths and many more arrests over the course of a single weekend.

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“As a member – and Vice-President – of the [UN] Human Rights Council, Ethiopia has an obligation to uphold the highest standards of human rights,” the letter concluded.