HARARE – Zimbabwe is hurtling towards total collapse with the country’s public infrastructure fast collapsing, while a severe cash shortage has drained a population grappling with the world’s fastest rising prices and that has fed growing anger against President Robert Mugabe’s government. 

Zimbabwe has in the past eight years hopped from crisis to crisis - mainly marked by shortages of foreign currency, food and fuel and the highest inflation rate in the world - and at the weekend residents in the capital Harare woke up to find their water taps had run dry. 

Since then, residents have come to a reality that water shortages could be a permanent feature of their lives. 

Although some suburbs have gone for weeks, some even months without water, this is the first time that the entire capital city has been hit by water shortages because of an acute shortage of foreign currency to import key treatment chemicals and power to pump water. 

“The government has without doubt lost control,” consultant economist John Robertson said, noting that although the government had taken over water management from Harare city council, this had only worsened the situation. 

“This is a reflection of the state of Zimbabwe’s economy that it has collapsed. I am not sure they (government) know what to do next,” said Robertson. 

Even when the water finally comes, it is usually rusty and has raised concern among residents who charge that authorities are not properly purifying the water, which could lead to a major disease outbreak. 

The southern African state is mired in a debilitating economic crisis largely blamed on Mugabe’s style of governance, which has seen him labelled a dictator by his critics after forcibly seizing land from whites in 2000 and lately plans to nationalise foreign-owned companies like mines and banks. 

The 83-year-old Mugabe is a combative and ruthless politician who denies dragging the economy into the abyss but argues that his policies are meant to redress inequality brought about by a century of colonialism. 

Although the veteran leader says Zimbabwe will never collapse, events in the past month have shown he may have lost control. 

Thousands of people have besieged banks, wasting valuable working hours queuing for cash which is in short supply - thanks to runaway inflation officially at close to 8 000 percent but which independent analysts say could be anything above 24 000 percent. 

Inflation, which Mugabe has labelled Zimbabwe’s number one enemy, has meant basic goods such as a standard loaf of bread cost more than a million dollars and consumers often have to carry sacks of cash to go shopping for basic household goods. 

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on Wednesday reacted to the cash crisis the only way it has for the past five years, by printing more and higher denominated bearer cheques, with the highest cheque worth Z$10 million. 

Bearer cheques are not money but promissory notes first introduced by RBZ at the height of cash shortages in 2003. They function the same as actual money. 

RBZ chief Gideon Gono - who insisted the bank was “in full control of the currency situation in the country” - blames currency shortages on cash barons he says have siphoned off huge amounts of cash from banks to the lucrative black market to fund fuel deals and foreign currency trade. 

But analysts have dismissed this, finding fault with the government’s economic policies, which have created a fertile ground for corrupt and illegal business practices by a minority while the majority suffers. 

“Some of us have given up, we don’t know what to do anymore,” a despondent Maria Chikuhwa told ZimOnline outside a building society she had gone to withdraw money without success. “I don’t think things will improve soon, maybe they will get worse,” she said. 

Indeed things will get worse!  

Incessant rains pounding Zimbabwe and the southern Africa region have washed away crops in many parts of the country and any hope of a bumper harvest have vanished, which could force the government to dig deeper for scarce foreign currency to import food. 

Power cuts continue to hit residents while potholes widen, making roads death traps for drivers. 

However, as many worry about the effects of the economic crisis, political temperature is heating up as Mugabe seeks re-election for another five-year term, which analysts warn would seal Zimbabwe’s fate as a pariah. 

Years of discontent within the ruling ZANU-PF could lead to an internal rebellion against Mugabe as some senior officials in his party are rumoured to be plotting to form a splinter party to challenge his 27-year-old hold on power. 

“Mugabe is fighting on several fronts but the biggest loser is Zimbabwe which will be in paralysis when all has been said and done,” Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe said. – ZimOnline