The actual figures of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation in 2008 will be the subject of papers and theses for years to come. A few weeks ago I did come across a locally produced estimate in a banking promotion given out with one of the independant newspapers.
The CPI (consumer price index) in October 2008 rose by some 46,134,120% implying an annual rate of 64,070,807,881,462,900%
Just thought I should mention it!
Hi Bridget,
Yes, there is no denying that Zim is a lot better off than a year ago. Everything is available albeit at a high price (especially electonics!). The basic food stuffs are reasonably priced and some things like beer (essentials!) are the same price as in SA. I would say that some 90% or more of what I see on supermarket shelves is imported. I even saw imported tomatoes the other day which in my opinion is scandalous! If you stuck to the touristy things you would not know that there was much wrong because they are not dependent on local inputs, just you the tourist bringing money in. As farming inputs go I can get whatever I need and prices have come down with competition though a lot of our chemicals seem to come out of China along with a few worries about what is actually in them. I was out at the TRB (Tobacco Research Board) the other day and they did mention that they’d had a lot of reports of phytotoxicity on seed beds this season though that might also have been due to imcompetence.
We are still as a nation not producing much though with the gold price being what it is that aspect does seem to be coming along. The flower exporters (who hadn’t been kicked off) took a massive knock whith the world-wide economic crisis of course. This year is also a full blown el Niño so rains have been very patchy and some areas are getting hammered. My senior foreman came back from leave in Manicaland last week and said that if they did not get good rain by this week their crops would be a write-off. I have heard from a friend whose son farms in the Chimoio area that they are equally bad. So no doubt the begging bowl will come out again!
Farmers getting kicked off the land is no longer the front page news that it was though I have heard via the grape vine that it is still happening. Maybe it’s because there are so few left that the rate has slacked off a bit! I do hear of people wanting to come back and I believe there is a drift in this direction. I’m not sure what they think they will actually do. I don’t see a lot happening until there is some sort of rule-of-law and of course that is definitely not going to happen as long as the incumbent is still there and he shows no sign of leaving. Loans are very hard to come by and conditions for collateral are ridiculous. I survive because I am a cash farmer but things are very tight right now – I have only 3 large commercial scale farmers left on my books.
The health services have improved a lot but are expensive relative to SA and if you don’t have medical aid you WILL have a problem at some stage! I suppose I should say that the private health services have improved massively but I was impressed with the Pari (large government run hospital in Harare) when I went there for some tests a while ago (that means it was functioning and clean and not the train smash that it was last year!)
Education is fine if you can afford the private schools – Peterhouse girls all in is now $3000 per term. A friend says that is more expensive than Rhodes University! Government schools are functioning which is certainly and improvement but as to the standards I cannot comment.
So yes we are in for another tough year.
Ciao,
Andy.
OK, so I find beetles fascinating. This dude has some impressive armour and mandibles. I put it in a Ziploc bag last night and it chewed its way out in about 5 minutes so it had to overnight in the fridge. It woke up in about 10 minutes today so I had to be quick.
Giant Longhorn beetle - Tithoes confinis
Blotched long-horned antlion - Tmesibasis lacerata
There are some distinct advantages to being self-employed. One of the more ludicrous examples I can think of was when I had to sign my own letter of approval to go on leave to South Africa when applying for a visa! This morning I asked myself if I wanted to photograph this ant lion or go to work. I eventually got to work at 9h30 – we are not exactly busy at the moment.
Detail of the above
There is an L shaped piece of land between me and my next door neighbours. It is about 40ha and is good ground. Last year Grace Mugabe farmed it with soy beans (well she got somebody else to do it but I did see her “inspecting” on occasion). They were late getting the crop sown and it was riddled with weeds so I guess the yield was not great. The year before that some white commercial farmers managed to lease it and did a good job with their soy crop. It was spotless and they did well out of it – I asked one of them, facetiously, if they’d used Roundup Ready soy seed. He took me seriously and said no, but they were looking into using it. Roundup Ready soy beans are genetically modified to take a spray of Roundup (glyphosate) which is a herbicide that normally will kill everything. GM crops are banned in Zimbabwe for no good reason that I can think of but then logic IS in short supply around here.
This year Grace’s lot are again back and again they are late. For some time a very large, new, tractor was parked behind my work with an equally large cultivator behind it. It did eventually do some cultivating and then stood again before being removed, probably because the land was too wet. Last week I saw herbicide being sprayed on the cultivated land then a rather old tracked tractor appeared with a much smaller cultivator. It has been parked in the same spot for the last 3 days and now the rain has arrived so it cannot do any cultivating. Not a great start but it’s probably not her money anyway.
After the first crop of soy beans were harvested the locals moved in en masse to pick up the beans that had been dropped. They were there for most of the year – times must have been tough (it was the time of the Zimbabwe dollar fiasco). This year I noticed that at least a quarter of the field already had a substantial crop of self sown plants and I don’t recall anyone picking up the fallen beans. I guess times must have improved!
The Rasta mun customer was upbeat – 2010 was going to be better but success would only come to those who worked for it. Not exactly heavy stuff but accurate enough I guess. Well, 2010 is here and yes it does look like being a beautiful day which is a start that is totally inauspicious.
Zimbabwe's national flower - the flame lily
The flame lilies are out in profusion at the microlight club runway. Curiously they exist elsewhere too; I saw one growing next to the beach on Koh Phanghan in Thailand in 1988.
Blue headed lizard
Epiphytic orchid
No snowflakes, no Christmas trees, no turkeys, no Santa (he’s a myth anyway).
Dirty money - mostly
Small denomination US dollar notes are quite hard to come by in Zimbabwe. I am quite lucky in that my business takes quite a lot of small currency so each month I start hording it so that I don’t have an issue when it comes to wages which this month I’ll pay on Wednesday. The bank I deal with has in the past been very helpful but I don’t take chances. Amazingly just about the only criterion on defacement is that the notes must not be torn. All the notes in the picture are quite acceptable! I think I am correct in saying that we are using US currency without the USA’s permission so they refuse to change any old notes for new. It’s a bit like the pass the parcel game but in this one you don’t want to be left with the torn notes.
The King Cobra came calling
this morning.
But I was not there to
look him in the eye
and ask –
why?
I was delighted to read in yesterday’s Independent newspaper that the ruling ZANU-PF party is broke. Apparently during this last year 1.6 million membership cards were distributed to the various provinces but only US$675 from their sale was returned to the party’s HQ. Some 500,000 of the cards were given out to “members”. It was not clear how the party will generate funds but it was going to “devise more imaginative ways” to get the cash flowing in the coming year.
The ZANU-PF congress is on at the moment. In years gone by it was held at luxurious hotels around the country but now it is in the headquarters in Harare – which I would think is indicative of their financial woes. I made the mistake of driving past, or at least trying to, this morning when Bob was due to open the “festivities”. Spotting the snarl of traffic ahead I did an illegal U turn and went another way. Quite which parastatal companies coffers have been plundered to put on the congress has not been revealed but there was no shortage of delegates eager to gorge on the spoils.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 