Zimbabwe Absurdity

 It’s a curious phenomenon; you can often buy things much cheaper in Zimbabwe in US dollars than in local currency. My other laptop has come to the end of its life; the cable that supplies the signals to the monitor has become damaged and the right hand side is very difficult to read. It was a choice of seeing if I could get it repaired or finding another. As it was approaching 4 years old I decided to see what was on the market. Quite a lot as it transpired, and it was reasonably priced if one could come up with real money. The accepted exchange rate to the US is about 8 million to one. However the price I was quoted on this machine was around 10 million (the price list quite clearly showed the US dollar price – apparently against the law) times the US price. So, I went to the piggy bank and dug out the 1200 dollars and am the owner of a new laptop, sans receipt and I did not pay VAT either! It’s an entry level HP and it comes with the Windows Vista OS which may not be something to be excited about.  The next task is to get all my data from the old computer across to this one. I am NOT looking forward to that.I suppose I should admit that I am practising the dual currency pricing too, but very selectively. We are growing a lot of granadilla seedlings for the export market; the fruit is exported. So when prospective customers ask me about the price I give them the US (on which we base our prices anyway – that’s not illegal but selling in another currency is) and then the local based on an inflated exchange rate. When they protest I point out that to buy inputs I may well have to use real money. They usually see the point.

It’s been several weeks since I have been able to blog; it was a lightning strike on the UHF link next door that did it. I was in my kitchen at the time and with the flash and bang together I knew it had been close but as everything was working in my house I didn’t give it too much thought. Despite everything being off on the computer network it trashed all their network cards and the UHF power supply. Such is the situation in Zimbabwe right now (hey, at last count 150,000% inflation and growing) that nothing much gets done without having to cough up in real money (more on that one later).

It was last week, I think, when Austin asked me in the gym what I thought of the latest development in Zimbabwe politics. I was clueless so he enlightened me that Simba Makoni, an erstwhile minister of finance, was standing in the presidential (and parliamentary) elections next month. On the surface this is indeed positive news.  Simba resigned from his portfolio due to the impossibility of his position and that he stood up to Robert’s directive. He is indeed bright and a successful businessman (as are a lot of the ZANU-PF hierarchy – though for different reasons) and really is our only hope for any meaningful change. Whether being Zimbabwean president would be any easier than Minister of Finance under the current regime, remains to be seen.

There are those who see this as just another ruling party scam to give credibility to what will undoubtedly be a crooked election process. It goes like this; they persuade Simba to stand for the presidency and make a fuss and bother about him being within the ruling party (even more smoke and mirrors here as no-one seems to know if he has been expelled or not). They engineer Robert to win and say “Well, there you go, the people did not want Simba – it must have been a free and fair process”. Or, they let Simba win, control stays with ZANU-PF and nothing much changes. I should mention that the opposition, the MDC, are a spent force before they have even started. They are hopelessly split along tribal lines and have no credibility. The leader of the largely Shona faction, Morgan Tsvangirai is just not much of a leader either.

Whether this really is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel or a case of the more things change the more they stay the same is irrelevant. We have no choice, we have to try.

Fabion is a decent guy and also one of my foremen. I think I have mentioned him in this blog before;  he is also a genuine warvet (war veteran), is totally reliable and useful as a driver. So I was somewhat taken aback when he came to me at the beginning of this month and said that he wanted to leave.  On closer questioning it emerged that it was all about a land issue.

When his father died he left the children a plot of land in the Rushinga area of north eastern Zimbabwe. He owned the land by dint of occupation as it was land allocated him by the district chief so he did not have title to it. Fabion’s siblings were not interested and he has farmed it ever since with the help of a youngster to keep an eye on things when he is absent. He has a few goats and cows and crops it in the summer as it does not have any irrigation.

This rainy season has been especially heavy in the northern regions and one of the cows got bogged down in the mud. Instead of helping out the neighbours simply ignored it whilst it died over a period of a week (the youngster had been called off on another errand by his father). I mentioned that community spirit seemed to be entirely absent.  Fabion agreed and a couple of weekends ago when he went back to see what he could sort out, the area headman also complained of the same problem. I asked why another person could not be found as a caretaker but it seemed that no one was interested. It’s a curious phenomenon this; why work for money when you can do nothing and not get paid at the same time. A neighbour was looking after things for the time being but was not interested in anything long term and was demanding a goat a month from March onward. This is of course totally unreasonable and unsustainable. I asked if the neighbour would be interested in a partnership to pool resources and build up a substantial goat herd but Fabion was not optimistic; “You cannot talk to these rural people like that”, he said. “They just don’t understand business like that”.

Fabion is reluctant to leave my employment and I have not run out of ideas just yet. It is certainly nothing to do with money but he knows that if he is not on the land or does not have a presence there he will lose it. I guess that unlike me he actually does have a pension plan!

In the traditional Shona (black) culture, the people have always looked up to their leaders for behavioural guidance – probably more so than the whites as they tend to think; well if he can do it then it must be OK. With the government hierarchy behaving extremely badly at the moment it is not surprising that the locals are losing their community spirit and will only help themselves.

My local bakery was surprisingly full of baked things at lunchtime. Rolls and biscuits there were aplenty. No pies though. Apparently the fat used to give the pastry its distinct pie type of quality was not to be had. Waiting my turn to buy some round “wholewheat” loaves (mostly air filled and artificially brown coloured) I noticed a few other items on offer.

1. A “brand new” Lexmark inkjet printer.
2. 2 tins of gloss enamel paint – ivory colour.
3. One candle left in a box.

That there were baked items on offer was not that surprising and I guess the absence of a queue of people waiting to make purchases could have been explained by the queue of people in the bank waiting to draw their money, but the paint?

Sunday – endure 15 hour power cut.

Monday – get up at 5 a.m. to use power thinking it will last long enough to at least get the washing done. Load the machine and turn on. Power goes off at 5.15 a.m. Power comes back on at 7.45 a.m. Get washing done while I should be at work, but, what the hell I am the boss. Power goes off again at 5 p.m. and remains off for 5 hours. Having learnt that the power can go off at any time I do more washing. Get to bed at 12 midnight.

Tuesday – don’t need to do washing but I do need money so go to the bank to draw the maximum $100m. The bank has no power (generator not working) so cannot give out money. Power goes off at 4 p.m. and comes on sometime in the night.

Wednesday – get up early to do some ironing but the power is already off at 5.30 a.m. It comes back on at 11.00 a.m. allowing us to save a bit of diesel (we have a diesel pump at the nursery). It is still on as I type this (4.00 p.m.)

Notes: There are still queues at the bank and the new notes seem to have run out already (wonder who might have them?). We are just getting back the old 200 000 notes wrapped in “bricks” of 100m.

I gave a lift to my “next door” neighbour’s niece yesterday. A pleasant girl she is under the illusion that all will come right after the election. I pressed her as to why she thought so but she could not give me a sensible reply. Her uncle is a once head of the Reserve Bank and has built himself a large house within sight of mine (if you have Google Earth check out 17deg 41’46.71 South, 31deg 03’37.04 East). Maybe this has something to do with her business exploits into Zambia “trading”, though what we have to trade I cannot think. People of his stature in the government often have access to real money at the “official” rate of 30000 Zim dollars to the US. A friend of mine knows a minister (he won’t say whom) who sent his daughter to university in the UK for the princely sum of GBP1000. The university costs 40000 p.a. All done through “official” channels of course.

On Christmas Day I went out to lunch with friends. Amongst those present was John Robertson, an oft-quoted local economist. Of course amongst the topics of conversation were the usual; who’d bought what where and inflation. John mentioned that he’d got hold of some figures from Germany in 1922-3 when they had experienced their legendary inflation and doing a bit of comparison it seemed that our inflation was not that far off what theirs had been. Of course for them it led to Hitler and the Third Reich but for us the outcome is not likely to be so dramatic; “Bob and the Fourth Chimurenga” is more likely (chimurenga is Shona for “revolution” – and yes there have apparently been three previous ones but who noticed?). John had also had a meeting with some IMF officials who came calling for an update on the Zimbabwe situation. When pressed they’d admitted that their forecast figure of 100,000% (yes, one hundred thousand percent) inflation for Zimbabwe was approaching a bit faster than they’d expected.

The officials who “control” the Zimbabwe economy (put in quotes because they very obviously don’t) have come up with a new strategy called Operation Sunrise 2 which involves revaluing the currency by knocking off an unspecified number of zeros and re-issuing the currency in the form of new notes (see “It’s not real money”). It seems to have gone a little awry. Only the new $750,000 and $500,000  notes have been seen and not in sufficient quantities to alleviate the queues at the banks. Money is deposited and goes straight out again. The banks have taken to giving out the $200,000 notes again even though they are due to expire (yes, expire!) on Tuesday. People are so desperate to have something to spend that the banks have no choice and the Reserve Bank is not supplying enough new notes. Perhaps the printing presses are broken? Nobody knows or they are not telling if they do!

During a pre-Christmas interview, Dr Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor, was responding to questions on Sunrise 2. When it became apparent that zeros were not going to be removed from the new currency a reporter asked how businesses were going to cope with not being able to have enough “space” on the computer software to deal with all the existing zeros. The reply went along the lines of – well, they will just have to go back to using paper won’t they? And he’s a doctor? Of what exactly?

Also just before Christmas I had a salesman come in and sell me a new toner cartridge for the office printer. He obligingly took a cheque and then took a while to read it. I asked if there was a problem. Oh no, I’m just counting the zeros, he said.

Well, they finally pulled it off – sort of. I did get my wages requisition yesterday but only in the new $500000 notes. The other denominations have yet to appear. Unlike some people I did not have to wait from 07h30 to 12 noon to get the money. Colin, my thoroughly decent bank manager, looking completely unflustered despite the very placid crowd in the bank, let me wait in his office until the money was ready and then I just collected it and walked out. I did have a bit of time to reflect on the differences between South African banks and Zimbabwean ones. I sat opposite the teller with no armour plated glass in between us and chatted pleasantly about Christmas plans and the weather. The crowds were all patient and quiet. Maybe that is our problem here; we are simply too accepting and pacifistic.

Well you saw it here first! Note the expiry date on the back of the note; it ain’t real money! Also notice the words “Bearer Cheque“. The previous link is for those who want to wade through the disaster that is the Zimbabwe dollar. Due to the inflation the conversion figures should be taken with a bucket of salt, but you’ll get the idea.