Rising cost of living in Zimbabwe pushes residents to the brink |

Rising cost of living that is gradually becoming a global phenomenon is shaping lives with people forced to opt for disadvantaged choices and some with no option to turn onto. On Friday, UK officials warned of the occurrence public health emergency in months to come if measures on the fast-rising cost of living in the European space are not taken.

The rising cost of living that could spread across countries in matter of less time have already forced people in Zimbabwe into a disadvantage positions as residents are finding unrecognized source of water supply and other accommodations.

In Zimbabwe, inflation jumped from 191% in June to 257% in July this seeing more than 50% increment within a month. A fast depreciating currency pushes ordinary households into a corner.

At the Carlos, days often start off by fetching water. The family lives in Harare’s Mabvuku township. Rising prices and a fast depreciating currency have pushed many Zimbabweans to the brink. In addition to that, prolonged water shortages have meant that most residents of Zimbabwe’s capital must source their own water.

“There is no water coming out of our taps, so our life now is just to pump the borehole daily and carry buckets of water home”, Christwish Carlos told Africa News.

The issue of healthy water supply has been the Zimbabwean government’s most pressing challenge for half a decade now as Harare finds ways to solve the prolonged drought of the country. In 2019, the CNN reported that Zimbabwe’s drought has left more than two million people unable to access clean water.

The country followed up that with a water rationing program that allowed residents of its two major cities Harare and Bulawayo to access tap water only once a week as a measure to address shortage of water.

A city official then said Zimbabwe’s water drought was due to the country’s poor economy. Harare Acting Water Director Mabhena Moyo had blamed the current economic crisis for hampering water service delivery back in 2019.

“We are using more chemicals and we have not been able to procure enough safe chemicals as a result, we are targeting to provide water to our residents with a minimum of once a week’ supply of the precious liquid,” he said.

Residents in Harare then told CNN they have been experiencing water shortages since January, but the situation has worsened as many homes have gone without water for weeks as the crisis lingers.

“It was bad when they started rationing it, we could store water but it is dire now, because we may have no water for days and there is nothing to store,” Nyasha Chingo, who lives in Kuwadzana, a township near the Harare business district told CNN.

“We will continue with the water rationing exercise for a certain period into the foreseeable future because of the drought and chemicals,” Moyo told reporters.

The CNN predicted that Zimbabwe faced severe droughts between last October and May 2019 that have depleted water sources in its cities. And the routine continues to more evidently aggravated after three years impacting the survival of individuals and families.

If the roundtrips are tiring, Carlos feels his family is lucky. The property they rent has a well and his family can haul up buckets of water to get some extra-money: “This is our gold, if we are lucky we can sell up to 12 buckets for US 2 dollars per bucket. This is how we are surviving.”

Living conditions continue to worsen, inflation jumped from 191% in June to 257% in July. Many Zimbabweans fear the country is headed to dark times again when the southern African nation faced world-record inflation of 5 billion % in 2008.

“The plight of the ordinary person is such that it is difficult to really survive in this economy where prices are increasing on a daily basis”, economist Prosper Chitambara said.

Gold coins

To prevent a return of such economic disaster, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government introduced gold coins as legal tender last month.

The country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the 22-carat coins would help tame runaway inflation and stabilize the nation’s currency. The coins are at an average price of just below $2,000 (1.982 euros) per coin, depending on the international gold price. Many such as Carlos get by day by day, let alone earn enough to save.

So, before the expected effects become visible, Jeffrey and Christwish Carlos continue working multiple jobs.

Indeed, the 50-year-old man, says he gets about 100 US dollars a month from his job as an overnight security guard for a church and the bar next door. That’s hardly enough to pay rent, school fees and other basic needs. Sometimes, he exchanges water for food items. Christwish, 43, also supplements the family income by doing household chores for better-off families in exchange for money or food items.

This evening, the family of five will be eating the staple maize (corn) meal and vegetables plucked from a small home garden which was prepared over a wood fire. Because of lengthy power cuts, the children do their homework by candlelight, although their parents press them to use it sparingly. Basic Items are now out of reach for many families.

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