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The major response to the crisis in Zimbabwe has been that of economic revival. But this task is not as simple given the economic dynamics that have reshaped the country’s economy as people sought to make do (kuyiya-kiya) just to get by.

The kukiya-kiya (hustling) ethic, which was aptly captured in a 2010 academic article by Jeremy Jones in his assessment of how survival strategies became increasingly crooked, has become the underlying element of doing business in the country. Ordinary people and traders’ hustling activities contribute towards the devastating haemorrhaging of foreign exchange.

The big story in this week’s issue focuses on how corporates and some personalities are heavily implicated in the externalisation of huge amounts of money. The story gets down to a more general level, examining how everyday transactions contribute towards this problem and make the aspiration for economic revival almost unattainable.The hustling ethic, as Jones observed, arose out of a desperate need to get by under difficult economic circumstances.

These serious economic challenges still continue to influence the survival strategies that different categories of people have adapted, from the outright criminal to the desperate. Closely connected to this is corruption which helps to sustain these irregular activities. T he discourse of economic revival has been dominant, with both governing and opposition politicians prioritising this in the hope of reversing the fortunes.

But this discourse appears to be increasingly relegated to mere rhetoric as the example of everyday externalisation will demonstrate. Everyday financial transactions among local business people purchasing wholesale products from the largely informal traders (popularly known as tuckshops) is the most obvious channel through which a significant amount of money flows out of the country.

Their activities are hidden in the plain view for all to see, from ordinary people to all arms of the state. Business people from across the country are asked to purchase products in cash, with prices set in US dollars with a 10 to 15 percent premium on local bond notes.

Where this revenue is then channelled is anyone’s guess. The Zimbabwean border, with its porous policing has become a smuggler’s paradise for goods destined, in part, for these tuckshops. There are secretive networks that continue to oil these channels and drive these informal markets. But this is compounded by other ordinary citizens travelling outside the country invariably taking cash to make purchases across the border.

More than 15 buses leave Roadport in Harare for Beitbridge daily. Never mind the other points of departure, including private motorists and “Malaitsha” trucks popular for transporting but also smuggling goods and people between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

If one bus ferries any number of passengers to a maximum of 65 and each of them has foreign exchange in excess of the amount stipulated by law, then the South African market is making a killing from the Zimbabwean market.

This has a direct impact on the amount of foreign exchange lost daily, and the impact this has on the capacity for improving the local industrial production base. Without any serious policing of these activities, the idea of economic revival and any activities associated with it such as the SI 64 initiatives or any exchange control regulations will not bring about the desired effect.

To address these leakages in a serious and sustainable way, Government needs to make very important consideration on a number of levels. This includes confronting the reality that there is need for alternative livelihood options for the multitude of people earning a living from cross border trading. This cannot be done voluntarily, but in very strategic systematic ways that will limit the negative impact of tightening the policing of exchange goods controls.

This needs serious coordination between various government ministries, the revenue collection agency and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with a view to really developing the economy. Admittedly, this would be just one way of addressing the myriad of economic challenges facing the country, but as far as capital outflows are concerned, this would be one option.

But as long as the Government does not seriously confront the externalisation of foreign exchange at all levels from corporates to individuals whose numbers add up to a significant amount of foreign exchange, then the discourse of economic revival will remain mere rhetoric.

This article first appeared in our sister publication Business Weekly on July 11, 2017.