January 17, 2008: When you get out of your car at the Ascot shopping
mall in Bulawayo, southern Zimbabwe, it is almost
certain that you will
soon be approached by a black market trader. Do you need soap? Are your
windscreen wipers worn down? The shops in the mall may have little for
sale; but, one of the traders can arrange for all your needs in a split
second. After President Robert Mugabe forced businesses to slash their
prices several months ago, shelves were largely bare: manufacturers and
shopkeepers did not want to operate at a loss. This scarcity provided
opportunities for the black market, with Zimbabweans buying goods in
neighbouring countries or directly from Zimbabwean manufacturers, and
selling them on the streets.All of this spelt further gloom for
consumers, who were already struggling to keep pace with Zimbabwe’s
mind-boggling inflation rate, now at 8,000 per cent according to
official figures — but estimated by economists to be around 100,000 per
cent.For those Zimbabweans who are out of work — the CIA World Factbook
puts unemployment at over 80 per cent —the situation is worse still.
Some four million people in the Southern African country now require
food aid, says the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Alongside
the economic difficulties, a years-long political crisis persists
despite efforts to mediate between the
government and the two factions
of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Activists,
journalists and others have been the targets of human rights
violations.Rumbi*, a former nurse and mother of three, is one of those
who have turned to black market trading to make ends meet. Every week
she travels by bus from the capital, Harare, to the South African
border town of Musina to purchase stock. Lately, she has mainly bought
cooking oil and soap, goods that are trucked back to Zimbabwe to be
sold from her garage. While Rumbi sells to friends and neighbours, her
biggest clients are other traders. In the course of a month, she spends
about $15,000 on goods, for a profit of some $2,300.This money enables
her to send her children to a private school — in Zimbabwe public
schools are struggling to retain their poorly-paid teachers. “I can’t
say that I have a good life, but I am doing better than most,” she
says. But, the profits come at a cost — bribes, for instance, to ensure
that the police don’t arrest her for illegal trading.As soon as Rumbi
has received Zimbabwe
dollars for her goods, she changes them for US
dollars or South African rands on the parallel market. Because of
hyper-inflation, local currency depreciates in value constantly, making
it imperative that US dollars be bought immediately to get the best
rate of exchange for local money. Rumbi only sells foreign currency for
Zimbabwe dollars just before she needs to spend locally.
According to Zimbabwean economist John Robertson, government is keeping
the official exchange rate unrealistically low to buy loyalty from
ministers and other officials.While foreign currency might be hard to
come by for persons buying at the government rate, it is available to
those in powerful positions, who are then able to get far more for
Zimbabwe dollars than they might otherwise. “If you are in a good
position in the government you can claim foreign currency with which
you can import expensive goods and can go shopping in Malaysia and
China,” says Robertson. For ordinary Zimbabweans, meanwhile, Malaysia
and China are just the stuff of dreams -- as, in many cases, is
shopping.