Zimbabwe’s worst economic crisis in more than a decade

“TEACHERS ARE starving,” says Tsitsi, who works at a school in a township in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Like nurses, soldiers and bureaucrats, teachers have seen their real incomes evaporate as annualised inflation approaches 1,000%. Their monthly pay, which they receive in Zimbabwe dollars, is worth about $30.Covid-19 has hurt Zimbabwe. Trade is gummed up. Tourists are unable to go on safari or feel the spray of Victoria Falls. But contrary to the claims of those in charge, the pandemic is not why the economy is in its worst state since the hyperinflation of 2008-9. The reason is the regime itself.