Zimbabwe’s money shortage has seen card and mobile-money payments eclipse cash sales at the nation’s retailers, throttling suppliers’ stock of hard currency needed to put goods on shelves and forcing up food prices.
“About 60 percent of stock on any supermarket shelf is imported,” and without sufficient dollars, inflation on imported goods is as much as 60 percent a year, Yeatman said at the Groombridge branch in the capital, Harare. “Suppliers are obviously concerned because the hard currency isn’t there.” At other retailers, a 200-gram (7-ounce) jar of Nestle SA’s Nescafe Classic instant coffee costs $14 compared with $9 a month ago.
The southern African nation abandoned its currency in 2009 after the International Monetary fund estimated inflation had topped 500 billion percent, and has mainly used the dollar since. Greenbacks are in short supply following a collapse in exports that’s forced the government to pay its workers late.
Not Accepted
The central bank has printed so-called bond notes, which it says carry a value equal to the dollar’s, since the end of 2016, but they aren’t accepted by foreign suppliers, including those that sell critical goods such as oil and agricultural feed. Small shops and gas stations in Harare charge 30 to 40 percent more if people use them rather than authentic greenbacks.
A political crisis has seen the economy halve in size since 2000 and caused a cash crunch that worsens in the second half of the year, when foreign currency earnings traditionally slump after the sale of tobacco ends.
The central bank has limited daily withdrawals from banks to $50, but lenders have tightened this to $20.
People sleep rough outside banks in an effort to be close to the front of the line, which can snake around the block by dawn.
Bloomberg