Shortage of bank notes ensures bleak Christmas

By Lance Guma

28 December 2005

A crippling shortage of bank notes ensured a miserable Christmas for most Zimbabweans as banks struggled to meet customer withdrawals over the festive period. Not helping matters is the country’s hyper-inflationary environment, which means more bank notes chase fewer products. The prices of most goods are now in hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe dollars and speculation is already rife that new Z$50,000 and

Z$100,000 dollar notes are going to be introduced in the New Year.

Lionel Saungweme in Bulawayo, reports of long winding queues at most banks in the country’s second largest city, as customers scrambled for the few bank notes available. The availability of money aside, it was even clearer that not many people splashed out on Christmas parties as in previous years signalling a decline in their standard of living. Areas like Bulawayo however witness the almost annual ritual of Zimbabweans who work in neighbouring countries coming back home with flashy cars and household appliances.

Saungweme says it’s almost an annual advertisement of how green the grass is over the other side of the border and more and more people are motivated to follow suit and leave the country. Amidst the grinding poverty the majority go through, a small minority manage to display the riches of having to leave your own country to work elsewhere.