As we continue our interminable wait for progress on the PPSA, flow testing, seismic and JV, a reminder of the recent worsening of conditions for normal Zimbabwe people - already faced with a natural drought disaster - and now an artificial currency disaster caused by the greedy, incompetent, thuggish and uncaring ZANU-PF elite.
Long suffering Cathy Buckle describes recent events in her latest blog; ". . .The cameras filmed the arrival of the presidential vintage Rolls Royce at the entrance to the new 200-million-dollar Chinese built Parliament. The military horse patrol was there, riders’ heads adorned in white sun/pith helmets. As the car drew to a stop the security men hurried into place, dark suits, unbuttoned jackets, white shirts, bulging bellies.
Later when President Mnangagwa entered the grandiose new Parliament there was a wave of cheering, whistling and ululating. He described a country of successes which sounded far removed from the reality of the one we live in. We see a country where urban residential areas go for weeks, months and years without water, where power cuts last 10 or more hours most days, where the vast majority of people make a living selling goods on the dusty roadsides and a country where the national currency lost almost fifty percent of its value just five days ago.
Imagine going to bed with 100 dollars in your wallet and waking up the next morning to find that it’s only worth 56 dollars. This is what happened to the Zimbabwe Dollar, officially called the ZiG, a few days ago. Suddenly you can only buy half the food you were going to buy, half the medicine, pay half the bus fare, half the rent, half the bills . . . . On the flip side of the coin well connected people have doubled their money overnight. Those who were able to source US dollars from the bank at the rate of 14 Zigs to one US dollar, doubled their money when the rate changed to 25 ZiGs to one.
The irony of this official 44% devaluation of Zimbabwe’s local currency, launched just five months ago, is that it is the very people who are employed by the government of Zimbabwe who are the biggest losers. On Thursday they received their government salaries in ZiGs and on Friday that same government devalued the currency. It is those Zimbabweans, the civil servants, from teachers, nurses and doctors to police, army and prison workers to engineers, pensioners and so many more, it is them who have been reduced to penury overnight.
Millions of Zimbabweans are 44% poorer today than they were last week.Hot on the heels of the devaluation came the announcement that government have reduced the amount of cash travelers are allowed to take out of the country from US$10,000 to US$2,000. This will have a huge impact on informal traders, it will increase the prices of goods in informal tuckshops; lead to shortages of basic commodities, reduce the amount of foreign currency in circulation, increase the price of foreign currency and then the prices of goods and then inflation.
It seems Zimbabwe has not learnt a single thing from its own recent past. In an instant we have returned to the nightmare of 2007 and 2008. If you have family or friends in Zimbabwe, they will need your help to survive this and what will inevitably follow".
IVZ Price at posting:
7.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
