SHOCKING revelations by Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Priscah Mupfumira that over 10 million Zimbabweans — which is about 72,3% of the population — are wallowing in abject poverty demands that those tasked with governing the nation do some serious soul-searching.
Comment: NewsDay Editor
There is no greater indication of a failed governance system than that the majority of the population is living under the heavy yoke of poverty.
Perhaps what makes Zimbabwe’s situation sad is the fact that the majority of the population are well-educated and have professional skills through which they should be earning a living.
But the current socio-economic crisis has made it virtually impossible for people to live off their skills, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee into the Diaspora in search of better fortunes, while those left behind are barely scrounging around, surviving from hand to mouth.
This is how the government of President Robert Mugabe has reduced the population into nothing, but a laughing stock of the nations around us.
It is indisputable that poverty levels have worsened over the past few years and all the interventions government has tabled appear not to have brought a solution.
In the past government has chosen to ignore its own shortcomings and contributions to the problems and sought to blame countries that have imposed restrictive measures on Zimbabwe.
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But the question that hard-pressed Zimbabweans would want answered is: Despite the source of the problem, does government have a solution?
Quite clearly, Sustainable Development Goal 1, which stipulates an end to poverty, is far from being fulfilled given the current situation.
Efforts to end poverty in Zimbabwe must be expedited, but there is need for the political will to resolve that.
Poverty has been deepening and needs to be arrested as a matter of urgency. It doesn’t augur well for the future to have a situation whereby people continue to wallow in poverty with no hope for respite in sight.
