Abstract
Simpson and Hawkins draw attention to the collapse in formal employment which caused by the poor growth rates registered since independence, and which resulted in a swelling of the ranks of those forced to seek their livelihoods in the informal sector. They show how the growing urban informal sector became a significant support base for the MDC, and which by 2005 was perceived as a threat to ZANU-PF’s continued rule. The full force of the state was eventually used to crush informal operators in one of the African continent’s most notorious urban clean-up operations, and the authors analyse the various interpretations put forward for operation Murambatsvina, and detail its economic and humanitarian consequences.
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- 1.
Another analyst, who examined data for the period 1980–1987, puts the figure for average formal sector employment growth at only 0.7 percent (Mhone, 12).
- 2.
It is important to note that while these USAID surveys did not distinguish between informal and formal enterprises, they were comprehensive, covering the same sites over the course of all three surveys. Nearly 5,600 enterprises were surveyed in 1991, rising to nearly 7,400 in the 1998 survey, and the data therefore provide unique insights into the historical development of the sector.
- 3.
The work of Hernando de Soto served to draw attention on the extent to which, in addition to the problems the poor face in securing legal title to their assets which can be used as collateral for credit, other regulatory burdens act as an obstacle to formalisation. The essence of the argument is that government regulation and registration requirements, burdensome both in terms of cost and time expended, lead informal sector operators to opt to continue operating informally (de Soto 2000).
- 4.
One indicator of the extent of collapse in the purchasing power of formal sector wages (and the growing shortages of basic foodstuffs and consumer goods) is provided by a study of informal cross-border trading. This form of economic activity was dominated by women, who brought back goods purchased in neighbouring countries, in particular South Africa, for resale in informal markets, while also acting as carriers for Zimbabwean produced goods which could not be sold on the depressed local market, in particular arts and crafts which suffered from a shrinking foreign tourist market. The study revealed that the incomes earned by those in formal employment were no longer sufficient to cover household needs such as rent, food, school fees and uniforms. In the case of the country’s large number of security guards, their average monthly wage was Z$1 million, whereas through one trip across the border to South Africa a trader could net between Z$3–4 million (Ndlela 2006, 22).
- 5.
Another important feature of the global experience with informality concerns its association with criminality, which should be highlighted given it played such a prominent role in Zimbabwe both before and after Independence , and particularly so in the events of 2005. In the eyes of the governments of many developing countries, informality comprises economic activities that fall outside the reach of state structures and their regulatory frameworks, and therefore informality and illegality have often been conflated even though the goods and services produced are not themselves illegal. It is then but a small step – and one which was easily taken by the authorities in Zimbabwe – to ascribe attributes of criminality to all such unrecorded forms of employment , production and exchange. Such an association added to the already onerous burdens faced by informal sector operators. On this point see Potts 2007.
- 6.
One often overlooked aspect of this growing support amongst the urban poor for the MDC is that of the role of ZCTU which was historically closely allied to the opposition party. The ZCTU , against the background of a shrinking membership that in turn reflected falling formal sector employment , had been reaching out to informal sector operators, helping them to organise and thus increasing the regime’s concerns about a possible urban uprising based on the poor and informal sector operators.
- 7.
In an attempt to counter mounting international criticism of Murambatsvina , in the course of the visit of the UN Special Envoy the Government announced the launching of Operation Garikai/Hlalane Khule (OGHK) which can be translated as Operation Reconstruction/New Life in Shona and Ndebele respectively. The stated intention was to build new homes for those who had lost their shelter as a result of Murambatsvina , and figures of up to 300,000 new homes were regularly mentioned in the official press. In the event OGHK rapidly fizzled out as the sums required had not been included in that year’s budget, itself a good indication of the haste with which the initiative was devised. Even assuming a genuine intention to provide housing to those affected (unlikely given the political objective of moving the urban poor out of the cities), subsequent delivery was dismal. As the NGO Solidarity Peace Trust noted in its report, as regards the situation in Bulawayo city one year after the launch of OGHK not a single house had been built, whilst elsewhere the allocation process of those few units built was characterised “gross irregularities, with houses being allocated to government officials, children of cabinet ministers, police, army, multiple house-owners and others who were not on any official housing list” (Solidarity Peace Trust, 32).
- 8.
Some credence is lent to this linkage by the fact that the Governor of the RBZ, in a monetary policy statement released the same day as the official launch of Murambatsvina on May 19, 2005, lambasted the “iniquitous parallel market rates for foreign currency and goods in short supply currently prevailing in this market…most of which are being set and determined in some dark alleys and street corners of our cities…The activities of this grey market pose the single largest threat to our battle against inflation and the turnaround program. This will not be tolerated” (RBZ 2005, 17).
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Simpson, M., Hawkins, T. (2018). Regime Survival and the Attack on the Urban Poor. In: The Primacy of Regime Survival. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72520-8_6
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