Zimbabwe meltdown signals boom time for SAfrica border town

James Diop rings up another sale and then contemplates his good fortune to work in a supermarket in South Africa as the stores across the border in Zimbabwe grow emptier by the day. "We've had a 300 percent increase in sales since June which is unprecedented ... and so we don't want the good times to end," he said. "We really are laughing all the way to the bank." Like many others whose livelihoods depend on the volume of trade in the sleepy border town of Musina, Diop has found that the economic meltdown north of the Limpopo river is a cloud with a silver lining. Since June, when veteran President Robert Mugabe ordered sweeping price cuts, stores in Zimbabwe have virtually run dry of the basics such as cooking oil, sugar and bread as producers can no longer cover their costs at a time when the annual rate of inflation is believed to have run into five figures. While some Zimbabweans have turned to the underground market, others have headed southwards where such stocks are still readily in supply and can bring in a handy profit. The owner of a grocer's shop in the town of Louis Trichardt, the next stop down the road from Musina, said he was struggling to keep up with demand. "I am selling four times of what I normally sold three months ago," said the trader, who declined to give his name. At a nearby "Mr Price" supermarket, three trucks from Zimbabwe were being loaded with milk, sugar, bread, cooking oil and other household consumables. Musina is experiencing the immediate economic and social impact of the mass exodus of Zimbabweans into the country. Abram Luruli, manager of the Musina municipality, acknowledged that some locals were making hay as a result of the troubles across the border. "There is no doubt that the economy of Musina is booming in terms of Zimbabweans buying groceries and other goods as a result of shortages in their country," Luruli told AFP. But he also warned that the sudden influx was having a negative impact as well, with increases in petty crime and unemployment. "Most of them come into South Africa illegally, they do not do fingerprints to facilitate prosecution, they offer cheap labour and make South Africans lose out in employment," he said. Signs of resentment are clear. When an AFP correspondent spoke with Joyce Sithole, a 27-year-old Zimbabwean who is trying to eke out a living by selling sculptures and pottery from her homeland, she was soon confronted by a South African who accused her of stealing her roadside patch underneath the shade of a baobab tree. "Such clashes happen frequently here. The South Africans are getting angry that Zimbabweans are creeping in and gradually displacing them in all fronts and snatching from them their means of livelihood," said an elderly man who stepped in to settle the dispute. Senior prosecutor Edward Pusula said the courts were rapidly filling up with Zimbabweans who had stopped over in Musina on their way down to the major South African cities such as Johannesburg and Durban where most exiles end up. "Sixty-five percent of all offenders in Musina regional court are Zimbabweans who allegedly engage in crimes such as rape, robbery, housebreaking, shop lifting and smuggling," Provincial police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Moplafela Mojapelo, downplayed the security concerns however and insisted the situation was manageable. "We have made some arrests (of illegal immigrants) this year. Once we arrest, we deport them to their country," "There are challenges but the situation has not reached a crisis point yet."