Zimbabwe Absurdity

“The lift is full!” several people chorused. That did not deter the small guy waiting outside.

“There is a space!” he said and dived into the nearly solid crowd, somehow finding a space behind my left elbow.

“Just as well he is small” I reflected as I counted 15 people now in the lift. Just above the levels selector buttons there was a notice that prominently stated that the capacity of the lift was 13 people and 900kg. I had been going up and down in the lift as I sought to clear up the mess that is my company tax file in the ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) building that is Kurima House in the CBD of Harare today. Of course there must be a safety factor built-in on top of the limit but the manner in which the doors had to be forced apart on the ground floor did not give me a lot of faith that the lift was well maintained. The rest of the building has been refitted in the last 3 years following the US dollarisation of the economy so I guess that at least some of my tax dollars are being well used. I don’t begrudge them that; the building was pretty disgusting in the Zimbabwe dollar days.

My business there took 2 full hours and I got back to my pickup just as my parking time was expiring. The road was now packed with double-parked vehicles which seems to indicate that quite a lot of Zimbabweans are  paying their taxes. But I do have my doubts that those who really need to pay taxes,  the fat cats, actually are doing so.