Survivors of the Mugabe years pin hopes on a new government to repair Zimbabwe’s economy
‘These watershed elections pose a great opportunity. We have a serious challenge of getting everybody out of this mess,’ one Zimbabwean says
Harare — Zimbabwean factory manager Sifelani Jabangwe is a survivor of the Mugabe years, overseeing a company that stayed in business through hyperinflation, the national currency being abandoned and an exodus of investors. Now he hopes that next week’s election will mark a turning point if the vote brings in a legitimate government that can relaunch the shattered economy after Robert Mugabe was ousted in 2017. Jabangwe’s company, James North Zimbabwe, is the country’s largest producer of industrial protective wear and tarpaulins, specialising in protective gloves and shoes. It has survived by exporting to neighbouring Mozambique and Malawi, as well as Kenya and Rwanda, as its client base in Zimbabwe shrunk in line with the declining economy. Today it employs 150 people — down from 400 about 15 years ago — in the Southerton industrial area in Harare, where derelict buildings overgrown with grass are more common than open businesses. "The normalisation of relations with the rest of t...
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