Zimbabwe Absurdity

New notes and a coin. All real, apparently…

Earlier this year we decided to take the plunge and buy a house. We reasoned that with the economy in tatters there would be lots of cheap, good value houses on the market. Well, yes and no.

There were lots of houses on the market but most were unrealistically priced and the owners were inflexible on the prices. Seven months later we agreed on a house, circa 1960, that needed substantial refurbishing but was solid and had a good quality 2 bedroom cottage in the garden which made the asking price a lot more palatable.

Some $10,000 later it’s almost habitable and we are due to move in 2 weeks time. The rubble pile has grown substantially and the old parquet flooring (original 1960s teak) was clogging the garage. Then on Tuesday this week a buyer arrived in the afternoon as I was preparing to leave. Of course I insisted on cash and then the bargaining started, or so I thought it would. It seemed I’d come across the only Zimbabwean who didn’t know how to negotiate. Eventually I asked him how much he was prepared to pay and agreed to his offer of $250 – I had things to do. That evening he arrived back with the money bought at the Roadport in town, where all manner of buses and taxis congregate and devious deals are done, with the required amount in old $10 bills. I thought it odd that there were no larger denomination notes available but it was real money. The old parquet tiles were piled into the back of a pickup, the passenger seat of the pickup, a Honda Vitz and a Nissan 1/2 tonne pickup.

Yesterday my senior foreman asked if I could find some small change, even the much reviled bond notes would do. I managed to find some $1 bond coins at a hardware store and the clerk was happy to give them to me as change. My bank was also happy to oblige but the teller misheard me and said I could have my day’s allocation of $175 of which only $25 could be bond coins or notes. I opted for the coins and was more than a bit taken aback to get 6 brand new, sequentially numbered US$20 notes. Are we not in the middle of a full fiscal meltdown with US dollars being plundered at a frantic rate and the dreaded bond money taking over and doomed to follow the Zimbabwe dollar into oblivion? Well, most likely that is the case but where did the new $20 come from? Were they bought recently? By whom? Or had they been stored in a bank vault somewhere? Is this an attempt to emulate India whose government, in an attempt to curb rampant corruption, recently ruled that the larger denomination notes were no longer legal tender? That would be wishful thinking indeed. The larger denomination US$ notes have already fled the country.