A subtitle to this article could be the "Price of Tyranny" or the "The impact of bad Government". Whatever you call it in statistical terms, Zimbabwe resembles a country that has been at war. Most people have difficulty grasping the impact of statistics and I am more than aware of the adage that statistics can lie, but right now, a month after the Old Man of Zimbabwean politics stepped down "voluntarily" from power, it’s time to do a quick review of the cost to Zimbabweans of his 37 years in power.
At Independence in 1980, the country was growing at about 5 per cent a year and had done so for quite a long time. If this rate of growth had been maintained for the next 37 years, Zimbabwe today would have a GDP of US$52 billion, instead it has a formal sector GDP of only US$14 billion (2016). That is a cost of US$38 billion in lost growth in the formal sector.
At Independence our population growth was among the highest in Africa at about 3,5 per cent per annum – doubling every 21 years. Astonishingly – had this growth been maintained our population today would be 31 million. Instead it is about 12 million – where have 19 million people gone? I think about 5 million are in the Diaspora and that leaves 14 million "disappeared". Life expectancy has halved because death rates have trebled while fertility levels have been maintained. Up to 1980 annual deaths of adults were about 100 000 a year. That explains another 7,4 million leaving 6,6 million people.
But before we leave that statistic – we need to ask ourselves why so many early deaths? We have had one of the highest rates of death of infants under 5 years old in the world for much of this period, maternal mortality during birth has been at genocidal levels and far exceed the estimate of deaths during Gukurahundi from 1983 to 1987. Stress is a major contributor and one piece of research I have seen found that half of all the males displaced forcibly in 2005 during Murambatsvina, died in the following two years that they were monitored.
Overall, due to family planning, communicable disease and urbanization, coupled to better education of girls, fertility rates have declined, and this probably explains the remaining shortfall although deaths because of politically motivated violence probably exceeds 100 000 people since 1980. Any regime that deliberately causes the deaths of 7,5 million people in 37 years is a human calamity.
200 000 premature deaths a year being laid at the door of any administration is surely a cause for action by the International Courts.