Cash nightmare as country runs short of lower denominations

By Tichaona Sibanda

23 August 2006

The state controlled Herald reported Wednesday that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on Tuesday said it was injecting enough new bearer cheques in all denominations, after the first day of trading exclusively in the new currency proved a nightmare for many due to lack of small change.

As a result, according to our correspondents in Harare and Bulawayo most shops unilaterally hiked their prices because they could not get their hands on the new lower denominations such as $50, $20 and $10, resulting in many customers failing to get their change.

Both Simon Muchemwa in Harare and Themba Nkosi in Bulawayo said many customers as well as commuters were losing out on their change because retail outlets and transport operators did not have lower denominations.

‘What was happening in Harare was that if you had the exact denominations for a trip in a commuter omnibus they would allow you in but if you didn’t have they would ask you step off the vehicle,’ said Muchemwa.

In Bulawayo , the situation was also the same with many people being forced to walk back home, rather than lose out on their change.
A rather vague statement released by the RBZ Tuesday said there was sufficient stock of new bearer cheques in all denominations that had been distributed through banks and building societies. ‘It would be enough for transactions,’ the statement added.

How the central bank came to issue that statement when almost everyone else in the country was struggling to get the lower denominations was a surprise to many. Th e RBZ deadline to switch over to the new currency expired on Monday with thousands of people desperate to beat the deadline swarming into banks to deposit the old currency while others resorted to buying loads of groceries. The transition from old bearer cheques to new ones has been surrounded by chaos from the RBZ giving people little time to surrender their old notes to a serious lack of information on the programme, especially for those in rural areas.