How Zimbabweans in the diaspora are helping foreign economies

By Tichaona Sibanda

24 July 2006

Themba Nkosi our Bulawayo correspondent has just spent a week in South Africa and when he crossed the border into Zimbabwe he says he suffered a culture shock. When he travelled to Johannesburg, the exchange rate to the British pound was hovering just above Z$800 000. Five days later at the Beitbridge border post, he discovered that the Zimbabwe dollar had hit the Z$900 000 mark. ‘The prices of everything you can think of had changed five times during my stay in Johannesburg. To be honest I got stressed out the moment I set foot on my motherland,’ he said.

In South Africa Nkosi was able to check, on a daily basis, the prices of commodities in stores and supermarkets. There was no increment on any single commodity. Not surprisingly, Zimbabweans in South Africa have played a leading role in the growth and stabilisation of the economy.

‘Almost three million Zimbabweans are based in South Africa and they dominate in every commercial sector of that country’s economy. You have doctors, economists, engineers, teachers, nurses, bankers, miners and the semi-skilled all spread right round the country. They say it pains them to see South Africa prosper while Zimbabwe is crumbling,’ Nkosi said.

He said many of the people he spoke to were unsure they would return if there is a change of government, citing the state of the economy. Many, he said, believe it would take over 10 years to reconstruct the country’s economy.

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