More Zimbabwe
More Zimbabwe correspondence from my friend.
The following are some more of the observations I made
during my short holiday in Zimbabwe:-The country still does not have a formal currency. It
is still printing and using bearer cheques as legal
tender. Besides, the bearer cheques were and continue
to be in short supply resulting in long and winding
queues at banks. People spend hours on end in order to
withdraw money. After standing in the queue for so
long sometimes they are told that you can withdraw a
maximum of Z$5million or are advised that ‘cash is
finished try another branch or else come back
tomorrow.” Like I said in my earlier mail $5million is
nothing especially when people would have wanted to
withdraw larger (for those who have some money in the
bank)sums to buy food, pay rent, school fees etc.The consequence of this scenario is continued queues at
banks everyday (i.e. areas around banks now resemble
huge or mini-political rallies) and people who have
other means of earning money are not motivated by this
situation to deposit their money with any bank
especially if you no longer have any say over when and
how much you want to withdraw. So instead of money
circulating in the formal market large sums of money
are circulating in the informal (black) market.The agrarian reform programme is also being seriously
hampered by shortages of essential inputs such as seed,
fertiliser and other chemicals. In a season where
above rainfall figures have been recorded its
virtually impossible to do successful farming without
essential inputs. The effect of this is that many
resource-poor small-scale as well as some large-scale
farmers’ pieces of land are lying idle. This renders
agrarian reform almost meaningless.In the first place, land should have been allocated on
the basis of capacity to do farming not as a campaign
or political tool.
More of the often tragic news from Zim as it comes in.