YEUDZIRAI’S rotund face sparkles with anxiety, as her hesitant thumb scrolls down a variety of jobs posted on CV People Africa website. Her beaming face resigned into gloom on realising that the vacancies were beyond her, as only those with five years of traceable working experience were invited to apply. With a first class degree in accounting from the Midlands State University, her dreams of becoming a renowned auditor are fast fading away, as the economic crisis continues unabated.
BY MUSAVENGANA HOVE
The advent of internet has liberated how business documents and CVs are sent in the information age. Despite all these merits life is not a bed of roses for job-seekers in Zimbabwe, as the country faces a bleak future due to a multiplicity of voodoo policies by the Zanu PF government, which are creating uncertainty in the once vibrant “jewel of Africa”. With the latest report on Zimbabwe by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasting a collapse of the economy triggered by a grinding recession, mounting company closures and a biting cash crisis, chances for Yeudzirai and hordes of other unemployed graduates to get jobs remain slim if not non-existent.
Yeudzirai is not the only job seeker in Zimbabwe who uses websites to try her luck, but tens of thousands of fresh graduates and other recently retrenched workers are routinely glued to job vacancies websites such as Human Capital and CV People Africa hoping that one day good omen will strike. As time ticks away, the truth dawns on them that it is not these sites that create jobs, but the government that was given a mandate after the July 2013 elections, which it controversially won with a huge margin.
Instantaneously, after winning the election that his main contender described as grand theft, President Robert Mugabe (pictured) launched an economic blueprint dubbed ZimAsset. This much-hyped plan promised 2,2 million jobs through indigenisation of natural resources and product beneficiation. Despite being given much publicity as a noble plan on State-owned media platforms, the plan was no stock in the courts of public opinion.
“It is a monumental failure, in fact it is the great grandmother of all this suffering we are going through,” Yeudzirai said with a mischievous smile. She is not the only job-seeker to express revulsion at ZimAsset touted as the panacea to her awful situation. Budding independent media and political analyst, Tariro Moyo describes it as a rabble-rousing blueprint devoid of anything practical.
“It’s a high sounding nothing. If the situation goes unchecked, I foresee a scenario where Zimbabwe will be reduced to a common market place, where vending is the mainstay of the economy,” he said pessimistically.
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Another job-seeker, an airtime vendor at Copacabana terminus in Harare, who only identified himself as John, echoed Moyo’s sentiments saying youths must snub the so called “one million man march” being organised by Zanu PF as a way of registering their displeasure of the current economic stagnation being perpetuated by opaque economic policies such as indigenisation policy that gave birth to ZimAsset.
“As Zanu PF gears towards its so-called one million man march, it’s time the youths showed their disdain for the current crisis by snubbing the event,” he said.
As the country lurches from one political and economic crisis to the next, Yeudzirai and other job-seekers turn to divine intervention, as their once warm-hearted liberators are now into self-agrandisement.
“Like Acacia tress that withstand the scorching desert sun, our resolve for a better country will remain evergreen.
The audacity of hope that inspired all revered great men such as (US President Barrack) Obama and (the late South African statesman Nelson) Mandela to challenge unjust systems shall also inspire this generation to fight for justice. God willing this suffering will come to a halt,” she said with a chuckle that hides her resentment of her present situation.
