Less than a hundred meters from a central police checkpoint into the eastern border town, John Chimuti (not real name) hoists a dish full of fruits to attract prospective customers.
Such trade is not allowed under the Level Two restrictions of the Coronavirus lockdown, where part of industry is exempted to operate under strict conditions including screening workers daily, social distancing and observing hygiene practices.
The irony of a hand full of vendors who are now openly defying lockdown restrictions, is what appears to be a tacit approval by the security sector who, just a stone throw away, could arrest offenders.
At Mutare Teachers College is the checkpoint, jointly manned by the Police and Army, mounted along Chimanimani Mutare road, while the unofficial boarding site has been set hundred meters, at the Cold Storage Commission turn.
For John the choice has been made for him by motorists and touts who have modeled a mushika shika (commonly referring to undesignated boarding sites for commuters locally) close to a police roadblock as it presents a steady stream of customers.
“I have no fear of the police, they can come and arrest me because I cannot go back home to face my hungry children, or my bitter wife I would rather take this risks and sell the little that I can,” said Chimuti.
“This is just an opportunity that has risen for me. Mushika shika uyu ndiyo salary yangu (This boarding site is where my earnings are.”
Chimuti (42) a father of four, is a former employee of Karina Textiles Private Limited, who lives in Mutare’s oldest and probably the most impoverished high density suburbs Sakubva, where his family shares a single flat unit with three other families.
When he finished his O levels in 1996, within a year Chimuti was employed at Karina Textiles, working on contract as a general hand before securing a permanent berth.
When Karina, which was the country sole manufacturer of knitting yarn, started experiencing viability challenges around 2010, Chimuti was forced to migrate to South Africa looking for greener pastures, but pastures were no greener abroad than at home.
He got by doing odd construction jobs, boosted by South Africa’s hosting of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, the first by an African country in the tournament’s history.
As the opulence of hosting the world cup faded, employment opportunities for migrants without proper documentation got harder to come by, Chimuti decided he had seen enough, so in 2013 he came back home, a poorer man.
Upon return, there was no grandeur from his sojourn so he quickly adjusted to circumstances and turned to vending for survival, hoarding fruits and vegetables at Sakubva Musika and selling to travelers in the long distance bus termini.
With the restrictions in place government put a lid on long distance travel, franchised local buses into the ZUPCO fold, destabilizing lives of vendors like Chimuti, an association representing vendors says.
Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation (VISET) accedes on the necessity of the lockdown to curb the spread of the global pandemic but contends a total bar on vending is a condemnation to starvation.
VISET is on record castigating the decision to bar vendors from resuming their trade activities, despite the highly informal Zimbabwean economy, where hyperinflation and corruption create parallel markets.
In a statement released on May 5, VISET criticized this decision to exclude vendors from operating during the lockdown. President Emmerson Mnangagwa proceeded to announce an indefinite extension of the lockdown, subject to review every two weeks, without lifting the ban on vending.
VISET said government should have considered vendors to operate with strict control mechanisms, as efforts to save them from the pandemic will lead to their deaths from hunger.
“We had hoped that government would consider allowing vendors also to open but with stringent conditions to curb the spread of Covid-19.
“Control mechanisms should have been put in place because as it is now despite attempts to save lives, vendors will lose theirs to hunger as they have nothing to eat now,” said VISET in a statement.
VISET has a basis for painting such a grim picture considering the highly informal economy of the country (rated as highest in Africa), hyperinflation and high levels of unemployment and poverty.
A study by the International Monetary Fund entitled ‘Shadow Economies around the World: What Did We Learn over the Last 20 years’ indicates that Zimbabwe has the second largest informal sector in the world.
IMF says more than 60% percent of the Zimbabwean economy is informal second only to Bolivia’s 62.3, where a shadow economy refers also to a black economy, gray economy or the informal economy.
“For our study the shadow economy reflect mostly legal economic and productive activities that, if recorded, would contribute to the national GDP, therefore the definition of the shadow economy in our study tries to avoid illegal or criminal activities, do it yourself or other household activities.
The shadow economy includes all activities which are hidden from official authorities for monetary, regulatory, and institutional reasons,” said IMF.
For, Chimuti these statistics are not merely numbers, they represent a reality of a daily survival struggle for most Zimbabweans, relegated to the peripheries of mainstream economic activity by years of financial mismanagement.
He remains hopeful- a feature of his religious past, emblematic of the country’s resilience, that one banana at a time, he will be able to shoulder the expectations of his growing family.
“I will not give up, I was raised by an honest Christian father to believe even in bad circumstances.
“Complaining will not put food on the table so this defiance is not a choice, it’s a necessity, either I defy or my family starves, it’s as simple as that,” said Chimuti.
