According to the World Bank classification, which was adjusted as of 1 July 2022, countries are divided into four income groups: low income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-middle income and higher income.
The United States dollar, for example, has lost more than 250% of its purchasing power since 1980. One US dollar of 1980 today purchases goods worth US$3.55.
But even if one uses inflation Zimbabwe under Ian Smith could never be better. Perhaps the best year would be 1981.
Development economists, however, criticize GDP/GNI because it looks at total wealth and not the spread of the wealth. Right now half the world’s population only owns 2% of its wealth.
Put simply, if Zimbabwe had two people, Strive Masyiwa and myself, you add our wealth (US$1.9 billion and US$500) and divide by two and you say this is what each one of us owns.
But some of Mthuli Ncube’s critics are reading the figures wrong. One asked: “Why do you have to blame him, these are World Bank statistics. Probably we need to be educated better to understand these figures, mean while Zambia is doing better.”
According to the figures, Zambia is not doing better. It dropped from a lower-middle-income country to a low income country.
(241 VIEWS)
Page: 1 2
Africans must now tell their own stories because if they continue to denigrate themselves they…
Quarterly taxes, which are due next month, will force businesses to sell a quota of…
Zimbabweans will soon be able to change their ZiG to United States dollars and vice-versa…
Senator Sengezo Tshabangu yesterday expressed dismay at the pace at which the government is constructing…
Zimbabwe has ordered providers of goods and services to use the official exchange rate or…
Zimbabwe is going to introduce legislation which ensures that the country uses one exchange rate…