Barney, well put, the "facilitation payment" or more likely, sweetheart "facilitation deal" is probably holding up the PPSA.
While we continue our interminable wait for the PPSA, here are some snippets of news about the ever-deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe;
The Chinese masters continue their rorting. From NewsHawks;
AFROCHINE (Private) Limited, a Chinese-owned smelting company operating in Chegutu, has come under fire from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) after it emerged that the firm has under-declared US$3 million in royalties on the sale of ferrochrome alloy.
Famine and currency fiascos From Hopewell Chin'ono;
On his social media platforms, the prominent government critic Hopewell Chin’ono pointed out the irony of President Mnangagwa allocating trucks to traditional chiefs and ZANU PF social media propagandists while the nation grapples with a severe cereal deficit. He wrote: "The President of Zimbabwe has declared a state of national disaster, a euphemism in this case for saying there isn’t enough food to feed the nation. This ironically comes after the president distributed 100 trucks to traditional chiefs, and has started distributing cars to ZANU PF social media propagandists who helped in his election campaign. A surrogate close to the president, convicted criminal, Wicknell Chivhayo, has also been distributing high-end cars to greedy musicians who support the ruling party, ZANU PF. It is indeed strange that after this obscene public display of misplaced extravagance, the president is now asking ordinary citizens both at home and abroad to donate money towards something caused by his government’s lack of planning, yet he has been splurging on cars." Chinon’o boldly exposed the ZANU PF-led government’s deception, revealing that their claim of sufficient grain reserves in the country was far removed from reality. He said: "The severe impact of the ongoing drought would have been mitigated by maize reserves, but the government lied that it had enough reserves when it didn’t, only to be exposed that it was buying maize weekly from South Africa by that country’s Head of International Diplomacy on Twitter. Mnangagwa stated that over 2.7 million Zimbabweans need food aid. He added that Zimbabwe will face a grain deficit of 680,000 tonnes. Zimbabwe’s agricultural industry collapsed when ZANUPF removed land tenure and embarked on its never-ending removal of commercial farmers, both black and white, from farms and handed them over to ZANU PF cronies who couldn’t farm."
Chin’ono has emphatically stated that Zimbabwe currently grapples with the world’s highest inflation rate. Furthermore, the local currency has been rendered virtually worthless due to corruption within the central bank and the glaring incompetence attributed to ZANU PF’s legendary inability to govern, said Chin’ono, adding, “Zimbabwe is not poor, it is only poorly governed!”
Poor 'ol Cathy Buckle on the daily struggle of ordinary folk
Ten days before Easter the message came from the local medical insurance company on my cellphone. ‘Your new bill for April 2024 is 2,91 million dollars,’ it said. Last month it was 2.45 million dollars and in January it had been 1.39 million dollars.
What an amazing nation we have become after living through twenty-four years of disastrous economic policies. Every day we find ourselves juggling with the priorities of normal life: food, medical and bills – deciding which to cope with from one day to the next. If its bills we pay small amounts off at a time to ease the pressure and let the providers see that we are trying. If its medical we go into a hospital only in dire emergencies and then immediately request a payment plan so that our loved ones can have the emergency life- saving surgery they need before it’s too late. It is a truly terrifying encounter as the surgeon, the physician, the anesthetist and then the hospital all hold their hands out and say money up front. You beg and borrow what you can and then agree to pay the rest of it off in monthly installments, a terrifying reality of life, and death, in a broken country
Ten days before Easter the street rate for currency exchange was Z$18,000 for one US dollar. The same time in February it was 16,000 to one and in mid-January it had been 11,500 Zimbabwe dollars to one US dollar. Zimbabwe is undeniably in a state of rapid collapse again.
Waiting until just before Easter the rate had crashed again and I changed currency at 25,000 to one in order to pay month end bills. This month, along with everyone else, I got burnt. The exchange rate jumped dramatically from 25,000 Zimbabwe dollars to Z$32,000 overnight; four days later it jumped again to a staggering 40,000 Zim dollars to one US dollar.
One moment I had enough money for a month, the next moment I didn’t, simple as that. Just like that Easter was off, completely.
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Government officials said nothing, did nothing and so, following the example of the mongoose, we all just ran across the road and took our shopping lists to Zimbabwe’s army of unsung heroes on the roadsides. If it’s a food day we go to the street, to the vendors. . . . .Meanwhile out there in the shops, supermarkets and businesses its mayhem, they are having to change all their prices from one day to the next in order to stay afloat and be able to restock shelves. As it did in 2008, this feels more and more unsustainable by the day.
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