Is the GNU doing enough to end decades of poverty?

The Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe has been in charge for more than 100 days now and it is interesting to figure out whether the administration has done enough to ameliorate poverty affecting the majority of Zimbabweans.

Unemployment is recorded to be around 80 % and the country's annual inflation is reported to have fallen and employment according to Mr. Tendai Biti is now around 15%. The economy has been dollarized and the rand has been introduced in the financial system while getting rid of the worthless Zimbabwean currency.Zimbabwe has asked its neighbors for $2 billion half to support retail and other sectors, and the rest to help schools and restore health and municipal services. It has said it needs billions more from other donors.

In short, the GNU has been implementing macroeconomic policies and it will be important to examine whether these have a positive effect on the ordinary people who work in the still functional private business organizations, the informal sector and the civil service and those who are unemployed.

According to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the poverty datum line currently stands at US$ 454 while the current mimimum wage is US$ 100. According to the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, an average family of six needed $386 a month for a basic "basket" of goods that included food as well as rent and utilities. This figure is up 5 percent from $374 in February.

The council noted that though food prices in U.S. dollars fell, many basic goods were still far out of the reach of impoverished Zimbabweans.Finance Minister Tendai Biti, a top Tsvangirai ally, acknowledged that years of political and economic turmoil disrupted farming and industrial production and left just 5 percent of the population in formal jobs.

Others engage in informal trading and up to 7 million people, more than half the population, currently receive food aid.Biti noted that the new government receives revenues of about $20 million a month when it needs $100 million.

While there are reports of food availability in the shops there seems to be a widespread lack of purchase power on the part of the poor which makes the work of the GNU even more harder.