People of Bulawayo better off than those in Harare!

Bulawayo is dying. That is the message that has been dominating the news over the past two or three years. The main reason for this argument is that industry – the hub of the second city- is dying. Businesses have closed.

In Bulawayo itself, people of the city think everything is happening in Bambazonke. Not only is life faster and better in the capital, but all the money is there too, they think.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, this is not true. Bulawayo is better off than Harare.

Its Poverty Income Consumption and Expenditure Survey for 2011/12 shows that Bulawayo has the lowest poverty prevalence in the country. It stood at only 34.5 percent against Harare’s 35.7 percent.

Perhaps this notion stems from the fact that though it is a metropolitan province it is located in the province with the highest poverty prevalence in the country, Matabeleland North.

Prevalence of poverty in Matebeleland North which hosts the Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was put at a staggering 81.7 percent.

Ironically, the province with the lowest poverty prevalence is not the breadbasket of the country, Mashonaland West or its agriculturally endowed neighbours Mashonaland East and Central, or the fruit-basket of the country, Manicaland, but the province of perpetual whiners, Masvingo.

The prevalence of poverty in Masvingo was put at 63.7 percent.

The Midlands and Mashonaland East were tied in second place at 67 percent.

Manicaland came in fourth place at 70.6 percent followed closely by Matebeleland South at 70.8 percent.

Mashonaland West stood at 72.4 percent with Mashonaland central at 75.4 percent.

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