I’ve just come from the bank, where the whole queue was talking about prices. The cash withdrawal limit in Zimbabwe has been raised to $300 (which would have been $3 trillion before 10 zeros were lopped off last month). This is, at least, a marked improvement over $10 ($100 billion), which it was for several weeks before that.

But ever since Gono chopped them off, the the zeros have been racing to catch up. As my colleague put it, they’re Olympic runners and they’re coming back fast and furious. Yesterday’s commuter omnibus fare into town was $40 ($400 billion) in the morning – by the time of the evening commute home again it had gone up to $60 ($600 billion).

It’s the same in the shops – it’s as if, now that prices are in hundreds, instead of trillions, there is license to double and treble prices daily – because things suddenly sound so cheap! Zimbabwe’s inflation is now 11.2 million percent per year (officially – independent bankers peg it at closer to 20 million). Imagine how many times in a year you’d have to double the prices of something to have it end up two hundred thousand times as expensive at the end of the year as it was to begin with.

My bank queue wasn’t the only group noticing this – a comment we received from a subscriber today notes similarly:

The recent pricing of commodities and services as well has sent the majority running short of superlatives to describe the situation. It can be argued following the mid-year monetary policy announcement by the Reserve Bank Governor, prices started to increase astronomically. The monetary statement among other things increased maximum withdrawal to $3 trillion from $100 billion, slashed ten zeros which he argued for convenience sake and also re-introduced old coins as part of empowerment. This acted as a catalyst for price hikes by unscrupulous business people who are taking advantage of the situation. Surprisingly, the NIPC (National Incomes and Pricing Commission) is watching as the madness continues. Its credibility as a commission is now questionable.

This entry was posted on August 19th, 2008 at 11:27 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Shortages and Inflation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.