By Caroline Nyamayaro:

Zimbabweans who continue to wrestle with acute shortages of fuel, cash, electricity and water are now demanding that the regime should immediately attend to these crises, despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s repeated calls for patience

Mnangagwa last week, like a broken vinyl record, repeated calls for citizens to be patient with his administration as he tries to revive the economy. However, the statement is finding notakers as citizens can no longer haul the economic burden on their shoulders.

A vendor in Budiriro 1 Ruth Chasi said: “We are experiencing continuous power cuts and prices of firewood and gas have gone high, leaving us vulnerable and hopeless.”

Reports from Budiriro 1 highlighted that it was now the fifth month since residents had water out of their taps.

“I wake up at 2am to fetch water at a communal borehole, but I spent the whole day patiently waiting with my six buckets in the scotching sun, more often I go back home with nothing,” Tendai Zani said.

Budiriro residents have lost faith in both the MDC-led council and Mnangagwa administration as their situation continues to descend with each passing day.

Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority has since January been increasing fuel prices that have given wind to the skyrocketing prices of basic commodities and commuting

In an interview, a retailor from Vainona said: “Things in Zimbabwe have become very difficult, we are tired of long fuel queues and we cannot bear the agony anymore, we want a better Zimbabwe now!”

Another citizen from Southlea Park, Primrose Masukuma, said: “I am left with $2 from the $10 I had and now I’m failing to get back home because commuter omnibuses have increased fares.”

The inflationary environment has further compounded the average person’s woes as their salaries have remained stagnant and cannot meet their basic needs barely two years after a coup that removed the late former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017