Speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject, one Western official said: "It is hard to be definitive, but probably within months, by the end of the year, we will see the formal economy cease to work."Zimbabwe has been a case study in how one man can destroy a country.
He added: "One of the great dangers in all this, if Mugabe hangs on for much longer, is that the country will slip from authoritarianism to anarchy, the government will lose control of the provinces, it will lose control of the towns and you will have a situation where the central authority's writ no longer holds."
advertisementAsked which other African nation Zimbabwe might end up resembling under a worst-case scenario, the official cited as an example the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Zaire), beset for years by famine, civil war and inter-ethnic conflict.
What is truly shameful is that other African nations have done nothing to forestall the collapse of Zimbabwe. And they're the ones who will have to deal with the immigration crisis as Zimbabwe spirals down.
John Robertson, a Harare-based independent economist, said the prediction that the formal economy would cease to function within four months might even be optimistic.
"We could be a matter of a month or two away from that kind of collapse, and some would tell you that it's happened already," he said. "They can't pay the wages that would be necessary for people to carry on working, because the price at which they're allowed to sell goods is way below the production costs."
The most immediate effect of the worsening economic situation is escalating migration.
The Western official said that four million Zimbabweans, or around one third of the population, had already left the country, with "another two million packing their cases to leave", mostly to South Africa. The "flight rather than fight" strategy, however, suggests a mass uprising against Mr Mugabe is unlikely.
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