January Disease- No lessons learnt

Terence Zimwara

As the festive season ends, a new season comes into play and it’s a season of bankruptcy as well as tough economic times.

The so called January Disease a term coined by the late popular musician, Paul Matavire, is a time when Zimbabweans are generally broke and penniless having overspent during the festive season.

Over the years Zimbabweans make it a point that they visit relatives and parents during the Christmas and New Year holidays. During this time expensive furniture, gifts or assets are bought as the festive mood demands.

For unclear reasons people overspent to the point of forgetting their financial obligations which become due immediately after the holidays and January of 2014 is not going to be any different.

In January schools fees and accessories become due and given the prioritization of education it is inevitable parents will have to pay for these even as they might not have the wherewithal when it is needed.

To add to the burden, rentals and other utility costs are often increased in January making it impossible for most households to survive this period.

As a consequence, many households resort to selling some of their assets to pawn brokers or securing loans from loan sharks after pledging their assets as collateral.

This January however the situation will be worse if the prevailing economic conditions are anything to go by. Most economists are predicting a tough year particularly the first few months of the year as the economy remains in deflation mode with the annual inflation last recorded at 0.54 percent from 0.58 percent in the preceding month.

It would appear people were already broke heading into the festive season this time around. There were numerous reports of cash shortages while business leaders were concerned that business activity had not picked as was the trend during this period in previous years.

Towards the end of 2013, Willard Zireva told an analyst briefing that Zimbabweans should brace themselves for a tough beginning of 2014 because there simply no money in the economy at the moment.

In light of this one would have hoped that people would skip the traditional festivities associated with the Christmas holidays yet judging with activities in the run up to the 25^th of December it appears few took heed of warnings of dire economic times ahead.

It is inevitable the auction houses will be busy in the coming few months as desperate people try to raise money to for school fees, rentals and other utilities. For some it will even be worse as they will have their prized possessions attached by the deputy sheriff and get auctioned off for ridiculous prices.

Unfortunately people seem to have a short memory and they repeat the same next year and the year after. The government should perhaps through the relevant department try to run a campaign to educate people on how best they can manage their finances especially during the festive holidays.

A successful campaign might potentially result in a less mentally stressed workforce and perhaps result in improved performance even in the present economic environment.