Business Times Africa Magazine 2017 /vol 9/ No2 BT2Edition2017_web | Page 48

ZIMBABWE
Keeping Zimbabwe afloat:
trading on the streets and
off the books
As long lines keep forming outside banks, the continuing
decline of the formal economy has raised fears of a
repeat of the 2008 hyperinflation crisis
D
usk falls and thousands of
vendors fan out across central
Harare. Through the night,
they hawk their wares — vegetables,
clothes, kitchen utensils, cellphones
— from carts, wheelbarrows or even
the pavement, transforming the city’s
staid business district into a giant,
freewheeling village market.
On Robert Mugabe Road, around
the corner from the city’s remaining
colonial-era luxury hotel, the Meikles,
Victor Chitiyo has sold dress shirts
since losing his job as a machine
operator at a textile factory several
years ago.
“Since then, I’ve never been
employed,” Mr. Chitiyo, 38, said under
the dim light of a street lamp. “If the
economy improves, I’d want to be
employed at a company again. But I
don’t think that will happen. It’s been
a long time since we were optimistic
in Zimbabwe.”
Harare’s night market is the most
visible evidence of Zimbabwe’s
swelling informal economy, which
the government estimates now
employs all but a small share of the
country’s work force.
Even as Zimbabwe’s government,
banks, listed companies and other
members of the formal economy
lurch from one crisis to another,
46 Business Times Africa | 2017