Published by the government of Zimbabwe
1 January 2009
Harare — THE introduction of the Foreign Exchange Licensed Warehouses and Retail Shops facility authorising businesses to sell goods and services in foreign currency, and the mushrooming of other unlicensed outlets has dealt a near-death blow to the illegal foreign currency market as fewer people are changing their hard currency into Zimbabwe dollars.
Since almost all goods and services can now be paid for in hard currency, demand for Zimbabwe dollars on the illegal parallel market has fallen drastically, a development that has seen illegal foreign currency dealings almost drying up.
At the same time, the tightening-up of cash allocated to banks by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has made it virtually impossible to "burn" money, that is to arbitrage between cash and cheque rates.
A survey by The Herald this week revealed a significant drop in demand for the local unit as very few shops and traders were still selling products in Zimdollars.
RBZ awarded over 1 000 shops and wholesalers countrywide licences to trade in hard currency, but other traders have since followed suit notwithstanding that they did not have central bank authority to do so.
This has seen the appetite for the Zimdollar going down as people use their free funds to pay for goods and services.
This has had an adverse effect on illegal foreign currency dealers, whose business had been thriving as people used to change their hard currency to buy goods and services in Zimbabwe dollars.
Although there is an ongoing police operation targeting illegal foreign currency dealers in and around the central business district, it is mainly the growing dollarisation of the economy that has seen the lucrative money-changing business losing its glitter.
Ximex Mall, Fourth Street, Roadport in the city, Machipisa Shopping Centre in Highfield and Tichagarika Shopping Centre in Glen View used to be hives of activity with illegal foreign currency dealers conducting brisk business.
An illegal foreign currency dealer, Ms Gertrude Mahachi, operating at the Ximex Mall, said business had been going down since the opening of the first foreign currency shops.
"Although there have been police raids here and there, it is a fact fewer and fewer people want to change their forex into Zimbabwe dollars. This has adversely affected our once lucrative business," said Ms Mahachi.
Another dealer, Mr Michael Mapuranga, said most of his colleagues were no longer reporting for "duty" owing to a sharp drop in the demand for local currency.
"The problem is that there are limited places where you can use local currency. It is possible for one to go for a month without coming across a situation requiring the use of local currency, especially in the case of motorists," said Mr Mapuranga.
Basic commodities like bread, cooking oil, sugar and maize-meal are mostly available in foreign currency.
Even commuter omnibus operators now accept foreign currency, leaving those with free funds with no choice but to hold on to their hard currency.
Mr Lawrence Chipashu of Dzivaresekwa observed there was no longer any pressing need for people to change their greenbacks, rands, pula or pounds into local currency since the economy was now virtually dollarised.
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One has got to give the Herald points for trying. The complete collapse of the local currency and they dress it up as the rout of the black marketeers. Its a bit like Goebbles arguing that the Russians have stopped advancing when they were in the middle of Berlin.
The economy has clearly collapsed in Zimbabwe and the Herald is reporting bits and pieces of the puzzle. I agree they are doing as best as they can to put up a brave face.
Although the Herald is a mouth piece for Mugabe, a good number of their journalists are pretty decent. That said, now they have the grim task of writing about a country(Zimbabwe) whose economy has just collapsed. Slowly this is coming thru in their writings.
Mugabe pretty soon will begin to lose certain control of provinces because of distance and communication problems. Mugabe and his gov't have… [Read Full Text]
If Tsvangirayi fails to join the government of national unity then his political career will be effectively over - he will have betrayed all the people who died and voted for him. The dollarisation of the economy is a very clever ploy by the ruling elite to extend its rule indefinitely - they have effectively taken over as the new foreign currency dealers, which means the chefs can sustain themselves for as long as they need to. In the meantime only the ordinary people will be suffering.
The mugabe mouth piece thinks the people of Zim are stupid, this article shows exactly what mugabe and regime think of there people!
Lets go through this wonder of this piece of trash journalism.
1. The blackmarket will always be around when there is turmoil as there is in Zimbabwe, there is no way it has even been affected,as people have been trading Zim for outside currency so they can actually by things beside it was just shown there is trading going on in fuel coupons in your own article you morons!
2.A survey by the herald would be as… [Read Full Text]