by Bevan Musoko
Contrary to repeated claims by the US and other Western Governments that provisions of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) and other punitive measures against Zimbabwe do not amount to economic sanctions on the country, a recent study by the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) on the effects of ZIDERA found that the country’s manufacturing sector lost around US$5 billion revenue in 2010. In 2015, the study found that the same sector lost US$2.1 billion in lost revenue.
According to Dr Nyasha Kaseke of the Faculty of Business Studies, which conducted the study together with the Department of Social Studies, overally, the volume of production dropped significantly while, simultaneously, the country lost access to some of its traditional export markets. The study made a dramatic finding that “we now have low production and our trading partners are no longer willing to be associated with us as a result of sanctions.”
On access to international funding, the study noted that, “there have been no lines of credit and whenever we get loans, they will be provided at a high interest rate, making it a challenge to reclaim our markets.” It is common cause that Zimbabwe lost its traditional markets in Europe, where its beef, flowers, sugar and other products used to be exported.
The above findings make a mockery of repeated claims by US and Western politicians and their local political lackeys, mainly the MDC led by Nelson Chamisa that there are no sanctions against the country. US and local opposition politicians are on record claiming that ZIDERA only targets individual politicians, not the country’s economy. This has now been confirmed to be false as the drop in the country’s productivity, coupled with the loss of revenue, confirms the national perspective and effects of the sanctions. The revenue losses reported by the UZ are only confined to the manufacturing sector. This implies that the aggregate loss is much higher than what has been documented to date.
UZ Chairperson of the Economics Department, Professor Albert Makochekanwa told a recent media briefing on the study that they had researched on the effects of the US sanctions on health, WASH, Information Communication Technology, infrastructure, mining and minerals processing, industry, trade and finance, human capital and agriculture. Prof Makochekanwa added that “according to our findings, sanctions have never achieved their objectives without inflicting negative consequences to the innocent ordinary citizens.”
The MDC support for ruinous sanctions against the general citizenry has led to a schism between the party and ordinary people as they hold the party responsible for calling for the sanctions in the first place. This has led to repeated electoral losses as people protest against its support for imperial policies. The MDC has been labouring under the tag of being responsible for the imposition of ruinous sanctions.
The study on the effects of the US and Western sanctions was commissioned by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education as part of efforts to document and quantify the damage done to Zimbabwe by the sanctions.
