It was therefore fairly shocking (although not unsurprising) to see the headline on CNN: $1 now equals 25,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars
Most of you know that I love Zimbabwe – it’s a beautiful country with so much potential. It used to be known as the bread basket of Africa because it was so productive. At independence on 18 April 1980, President Nyerere of Tanzania said to Robert Mugabe: 'You have inherited a jewel. Keep it that way.'
It’s amazing how quickly the Zim economy has collapsed. At independence, £1 was worth approximately Z$1. In 1995, during my first visit, it had fallen to £1 = Z$13. By my 2001 visit, £1 = Z$2,000. For an accurate comparison you have to add 3 zeros to CNN’s figure above as in August 2006 the optimistically named, yet doomed to failure plan to save the Zim economy - “Operation Sunrise” – redenominated the currency at 1,000 old dollars equals 1 new dollar – so the Z$ today is worth one 12 billionth of what it was worth at independence.
So if I’d put the equivalent of £100 in a Zimbabwean bank in 1995 when I was first there it would now be worth £0.0000002. Now I’m learning quite a lot about financial markets at the moment – and I don’t think that’s a very good investment!
And despite this and with inflation running at 150,000% it’s likely that the people of Zimbabwe, fed lies by the state media, will re-elect the architect of this collapse for another term… let’s hope that proves not to be the case.
It’s amazing how quickly the Zim economy has collapsed. At independence, £1 was worth approximately Z$1. In 1995, during my first visit, it had fallen to £1 = Z$13. By my 2001 visit, £1 = Z$2,000. For an accurate comparison you have to add 3 zeros to CNN’s figure above as in August 2006 the optimistically named, yet doomed to failure plan to save the Zim economy - “Operation Sunrise” – redenominated the currency at 1,000 old dollars equals 1 new dollar – so the Z$ today is worth one 12 billionth of what it was worth at independence.
So if I’d put the equivalent of £100 in a Zimbabwean bank in 1995 when I was first there it would now be worth £0.0000002. Now I’m learning quite a lot about financial markets at the moment – and I don’t think that’s a very good investment!
And despite this and with inflation running at 150,000% it’s likely that the people of Zimbabwe, fed lies by the state media, will re-elect the architect of this collapse for another term… let’s hope that proves not to be the case.
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