Zimbabwe-Money, Money, Money

ZIMBABWE

Money, Money, Money

Zimbabwean businesses are operating at night when they’re more likely to have electricity. Over the past week, there were blackouts that lasted at least two days.

Officials blame low water levels for hydropower plants, antiquated coal-fired plants and decades of corruption they are trying to stamp out, Al Jazeera reported.

Those might be valid excuses. But, as Sky News noted, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is perhaps rightly taking the blame for the power outages as well as 90 percent unemployment and inflation hitting 100 percent.

Mnangagwa and Zimbabwe’s army ousted longtime dictator Robert Mugabe in November 2017. Last year, when Mnangagwa ran to keep his presidency, he promised “the Zimbabwe you want” on the campaign trail.

But at the same time, Mnangagwa has continued the brutal repression of dissidents and other abusive practices that he oversaw when he was one of Mugabe’s righthand men and known as “the crocodile,” Sky News reported in a separate video.

Perhaps Mnangagwa’s greatest flub has been his decision in June to ban the use of foreign currency in the southeast African country and reintroduce the Zimbabwean dollar a decade after hyperinflation caused its collapse.

“We were living in an abnormal situation. We should actually be congratulated for taking this step,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “What we have done is we have gone back to normalcy. Normalcy is that the country must have its own currency.”

But no one wants to use it.

Meanwhile, Zimbabweans have few memories of normalcy. After almost 40 years of Mugabe’s rule, they have become wary of using the currency of their failing economy, using US dollars, euros, British pounds and other currencies instead. Ending transactions in foreign currencies now is causing chaos.

“I must have foreign currency to import my leather products,” said Crispen Dembedza, 51, who runs a leather clothing shop in Harare’s central business district, told the Washington Times. “Without foreign currency, I won’t be able to remain in business. I can’t find any local suppliers [of my products], and if they were any they would not be able to meet demand.”

Critics also said the move was likely illegal because Parliament had failed to approve the plan, Bloomberg wrote in another story. It certainly wasn’t well-planned. Mnangagwa announced the policy by decree less than a day after his finance minister said the country was not prepared to end its “multi-currency economy.”

Zimbabwean leaders are already pleading with China for a $2 billion bailout to stabilize their economy, the Zimbabwe Independent reported. China has not been enthusiastic. Zimbabwe had also sought a smaller bailout from South Africa, but leaders in Pretoria declined, citing their own money problems. After all, Zimbabwe has yet to pay off loans from former bailout packages, the newspaper added.

Mnangagwa appears to be on his own. And so do his people.