By Tendai Msengezi (This is a last in series of four articles about the drought in southern Africa and its implications)
“Water crisis forces businesses to close.” “Business closures as water crunch hits.” “Construction industry braces for worse times.”
These are some of the headlines dominating the front pages of regional newspapers as the worst drought in southern Africa takes its toll on industries.
The negative effects of the economic reform programmes combined with drought have severely eroded industries in several countries.
Zambia’s stringent power rationing measures resulting from the drought are threatening to wipe out the gains made in the economy and to reduce industrial output to a fraction of capacity. Power supply has -been cut to the equivalent of four days a week from a seven-day-week basis, and domestic power use to 16 hours a day. An estimated positive target of 1.2 percent increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1992, up from an annual average 3 percent decline since 1984, is unlikely to be met. In an effort to discourage the use of electrical appliances and to pay for electricity being bought from other countries, electricity rates were increased by a staggering 400 percent. Drought has reduced hydro-electric output by up to 85 percent and businesses that do not strictly adhere to these measures will have stiff penalties imposed on them.
“All our dams are at their lowest level on record,” says John Wright, spokesman for the Zambia Electricity Supply Company (ZESCO), “we have less than 80 days of power if consumption continues at the current levels.”
Before the cuts, the industrial sector was just beginning to pick up and had achieved an encouraging 40 percent capacity utilisation in the last quarter, up from 15 percent in the same period last year. But in the coming quarter, it will be manufacturers who will be worst hit by ZESCO’s measurers. The vital mining industry, though said to be protected from power cuts, will almost certainly be hurt by its dependency on other industries which will see their production fall by nearly 20 percent by December, according to economic indicators.
Botswana, which at the best of times has always been dry, is experiencing difficulties as well. The construction and textile industries, which employs a large percentage of the work force, have had to retrench a lot of people. Since January this year, more than 200 workers have lost their jobs from about 14 companies which had been undertaking various development activities in Francistov.11.
The Managing Director of Plate Glass Industries, Richard Bellamy, said that his company has so far laid off more than 40 workers, and this may spread to other Plate Glass industries operating in Botswana. According to Dawood Khonat, President of the Botswana Textile Manufacturers Association, 50 percent of the work force in the textile sector have been retrenched and the future looks bleak unless the situation improves.
”The efforts the manufacturers have made over the past 10 years will disappear,” said Khonat. His own group of companies has retrenched more than a thousand workers and the number could be higher in other companies.
The situation is no better in Zimbabwe.
“I was retrenched together with a substantial number of my work mates because we were not producing to capacity as a result of water shortages here in Bulawayo, the constant electrical power cuts caused by low water tables and old equipment as well as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). How we are expected to survive the economic hardships and the drought only God knows,” laments Jonathan Maphosa, who worked for a textile manufacturing company before it closed down.
There are now fears that industries in Bulawayo (which has an estimated 35 percent of the country’s major foreign-currency- earning industries) may close down for up to four months due to the water crisis facing the city.
“If water projects are not completed by the end of this month, (November) industries would be forced to go on a Christmas closure of over four months. By the middle of November, a shortage of water will occur,” Says the president of the Matebeleland Chamber of Industries, Joe Stones.
He expresses disappointment that no clear-cut provisions have been made to provide Bulawayo with water when its supply dams run dry. The 40 km pipeline from Nyamandlovu aquifer to Bulawayo city, the most significant measure taken by government to alleviate the water situation is still quite a way from being completed.
The Indigenous Business Development Centre (IBDC) secretary-general, Strive Masiyiwa, said that 50 percent of small businesses have been shut down in the country’s smaller towns and rural areas largely because of the drought and ESAP, and more are expected to follow suit.
“Small-scale black businesses, running about 800,000 enterprises, employ two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s total national work force in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy, so you can imagine the implications for unemployment,” says one economist.
Mozambique, whose industrial base is not as strong as some of its neighbours, has suffered through a combination of drought and war- related destruction. Some growth was, however, recorded in construction and fishing industries, though at lower rates than had been focused.
In Namibia, the capital city’s water is running out due to low dam levels and excessive use of water by consumers and industries. Measurers to reduce the level to business and residential areas are now being considered.
Industries in the other six member countries of the Southern African Development Community {SADC) could face the same problem in varying degrees, but there is some hope.
The last few days have seen what appears to be the beginning of a normal rainy season. Heavy rains have pounded western Zimbabwe bringing many of Matebeleland’s rivers down in floods. Several small darns are now spilling over while others are almost full.
“Indications are that we are heading for a good rainy season,” says a spokesman for the meteorological office. Some good rains have also been reported in parts of South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia. Good news for the industrialists, but as one economist puts it;
“The rains are, indeed, a welcome sight. The damage to industries (caused by the drought) will take several good seasons to overcome, but this is a start.” (SARDC)
