Zimbabwe's claims of lowered inflation unconvincing

Zimbabwe fools no-one with 9% unemployment claim

MANGWANA

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister stunned journalists at a press conference this week by declaring that unemployment in in the country was 9 percent...and he was prepared to back it up!

Paul Mangwana seemed to contradict all wisdom -- what economic commentators have predicted and what his colleagues in cabinet have accepted -- that Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is 70% and keeps going up.

In fact, labour officials in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) have in recent months been arguing that the rate of unemployment had surged to a record 80 percent.

“Unemployment in Zimbabwe is pegged at 9 percent," claimed Mangwana. "These are the figures that were supplied to me by the Central Statistical Officer (CSO) and they are the same figures that I use.

“It is an overstatement to say that unemployment in Zimbabwe is 70 percent. If that was the case then there could be no Zimbabwe to talk about. All the people would be dead because the 30 percent that is said to be employed cannot support the remaining 70 percent,” Mangwana said.

He added that the definition that is used when calculating unemployment only took into account those people who are formerly employed.

He said Zimbabwe was now awash with self employed business people who would adjust the statistics downwards if they were taken into account.
“In fact, a survey that is currently underway is revealing that there are employment opportunities in farming and do we need to go back to Malawi to look for migrant labour?” the minister confidently asked.

The Central Statistical Office had for the past 4 years kept quiet when the 70 percent unemployment figure started doing the rounds and officials at the organisation were surprised that the minister had made such utterances at a time when evidence was clear that companies were winding up operations.

Industrial output plummeted to 30 percent this year with the key-manufacturing sector being projected to decline by 8.5 percent by the end of the year as a result of the closure of more that 900 companies since the year 2000.

Mangwana said basing on the number of contributions to the National Social Security Authority (NSSA), about 1.8 million people are formally employed in Zimbabwe.
Daily Mirror
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