Zimbabweans sweat for change, as traders reject ZW$50 notes

Zimbabweans are experiencing hardships while paying for commodities as traders are now rejecting the ZW$50 bank note.

This has seen some forced to buy the goods they don’t want, just because of lack of change.

“I paid US$1 as bus fare from Msasa Park to town, a journey for US$0.50. And because of the rejection of the ZW$50 note, the conductor failed to get change for me.

“At last, he joined me with another passanger and gave us US$1 and told us to go and look for change elsewhere,” says one disgruntled commuter.

The rejection of the ZW$50 note has caused shortages of change for the transacting public.

Apparently, according to National Consumers Rights Association president Effie Ncube the rejection of the ZWL$50notes was a sign of a lack of confidence in the local currency.

“The first thing is that this is a response from the market showing a lack of confidence in the Zimbabwe dollar and on the economic policies of the government.

“The ramifications of that would be the continuous decline of the value of the Zimbabwean dollar versus major currencies.

“That will drive up the prices of goods that are denominated in Zimbabwe dollars.

“So, in other words, it will drive up and put inflationary pressures on the Zimbabwe dollar-denominated prices,” he says.

And economist Prosper Chitambara said the rejection of the ZWL$50 note might push the government to release higher denomination notes.

“Given the challenges we have had, with high inflation I think it’s understandable that most economic agencies would reject the ZWL$50 note because it has obviously been decimated by inflation and it cannot purchase much.

“So, it then calls on the monetary authorities to come up with higher denominations.

“I am sure they would be wary to do that because that would also increase money supply depending on how it is done which can then trigger inflation.

“But, given the challenges as I have said with high inflation, there is a need to provide some bit of convenience, in economic urgency, to the transacting public by coming up with notes that are in line with the inflationary developments,” he says.

Zwnews