By John Ndlovu
The 21st Century’ second decade has not been easy on the general populace worldwide as it was marred by the advent of Corona Virus populary known as Covid-19.
The spread of the deadly virus was followed up by a string of lockdowns and stringent regulations across the world which were brought in by governments in a bid to curb the latter and contain it from spreading.
The post covid Era created a glimmer of hope for Zimbabweans and the general populace globally as they experienced reopening of industries and normalization of day to day services which were suffocating from the pandemic’effects.
However normalization of day-to-day operations in Zimbabwe and worldwide was characterized by spontaneous inflation and sporadic retrenchment on the technological world.
On the global sphere, the post covid era impacted the operation of tech giants Amazon, Meta, Hewlett Pack and Twitter as they trimmed their workforce in a bid to curb high costs.
New Twitter boss, billionaire Elon Musk pioneered massive layoffs on the technological scene as he fired more employees especially those who occupied top executive posts in a restructuring process as he wanted to bring in new blood whilst also cutting job costs as a result of post covid 19 effects.
Meta followed suit in the same month as Zuckerberg led social media company also made massive retrenchments thus firing more than 11000 employees.
Here in Zimbabwe spontaneous inflation seriously undermined access to broadband data as telecommunication companies(Netone, Econet and Telecel) have been constantly increasing data prices due to inflation as the latter has also affected technological advancement in the SADC nation.
Zim GBC News went to the streets of Bulawayo to carry out a survey on the subject under the study.
“This has been a very difficult year as Econet has been merciless on us, data prices have been hiked continuously so we can say 2022 has been a tough year for us we hope 2023 will be better.” Said a dejected Nketa resident Majaha Dube.
“u2022 ubebuhlungu, izinto zonke bezikhwezwa almost every month, ikakhulu idata isithwalise nzima sekunzima lokuthi umuntu ake angene kuWhatsApp njengoba idata isidla ubhedu ngapha lamarates ayakhwela mtshokotsho, sesikhulekela ukuthi u 2023 asilethele okungcono shuwa.” stated MaMbambo from Nkulumane.
“bekulobunzima lonyaka ngoba ubukwanisa ukuthola only US$20 for one week eyabe incane kakhulu as compared to iRent okuyabe kufunakala US$200 so ngicina ngingasatholi any profit usukhanywa yizikwelede. So u2022 ubenzima.”Said Mthetheleli Nkomo a technology entrepreneur at a small shop at Computer village.
“2022 however ungifundisile to adapt to the situation through intensifying marketing through use of online advertising through social media platforms njengaboFacebook laboWhatsApp.”He added.
Data prices and sporadic inflation rates in Zimbabwe have been a thorn in the flesh of Zimbabweans which has added salt to the wound as they have siphoned people’s pockets and left them without anything.
Even tech businesses and entrepreneurs have suffered from the latter.
“Constant costs increase and inflation have seriously undermined relations between us(the company) and our customers as we have tried to curb sporadic costs through hiking data costs also in a bid to improve services in our company.”Said an Econet employee who refuted to disclose his name.