SW Radio Africa (London)
Lance Guma
12 December 2008
The Central Bank on Friday announced it would introduce a new Z$500 million dollar note made of '100 percent cotton,' as the country battles world record inflation.
A published statutory instrument said the new note would be purple in colour and have the text 'RBZ' embedded on the front, and on the back have 'an impression of dairy cows being milked mechanically and a miner drilling underground.' The country has been crippled by shortages of bank notes which has fuelled long winding queues of desperate customers wanting to withdraw their money from banks.
After running down the country's economy Mugabe's regime does not have the money to buy the special paper used to print money and has now been forced to use cotton materials to print bank notes. It's not yet clear how money made from 'cotton' will look and no one has seen the samples, but some experts suggested it might be a hybrid of several other materials used to make the money 'as close to paper' as possible. The new Z$500 million bill is not expected to change anything as it's estimated to only cover the cost of buying 8 loaves of bread.
A Z$200 million dollar note is also expected, but no date has been given yet when both the Z$200 and Z$500 million denominations will be unveiled. Only last week the RBZ unveiled new $10 million, $50 million and $100 million notes, following a review of weekly cash withdrawal limits for individual account holders from $500 000 to $100 million, and $1 million to $50 million for companies.
With inflation officially at 231 million percent but unofficially over 500 quintillion percent, analysts say the new measures amount to a 'dog chasing its tail.' Under Gono's regime, 29 new bank notes have been introduced in 2008 alone in an effort to keep pace with inflation. But every time cash withdrawal limits are raised, with the consequent increase in the amount of money supplied, in most cases, prices of goods and services have also doubled, if not trebled.
This has meant none of the cash withdrawal limits has ever covered the daily basic cost of living for Zimbabweans. In the absence of fundamental political and economic reforms, the central bank remains treating the symptoms - and not the disease.
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The introduction of the $5oo million cotton based bill should be a big relief to all the sanitary ware starved women of Zimbabwe as they can now have sanitary pads for a change. If only Gono should print more of them.
Imagine all the uses these new notes could provide. A bit of stitching and you have cheap dish towels, sheets, even clothing :-)
Remember, with the 10 zeros removed in August, this is the equivalent of a 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 note under the old currency. Whats the point? Give it 2 months they'll take all the zeros off again anyways.
hey west...not only can it be used that way but it can then be washed, dried and re-used....so someone is finally coming to their senses!!!!
Gono the innovator of a failing economy, hapana zvamurikuita vakomana! dai makomborera nyika mazvisiya. Gono you lose nothing by resigning, staying on will help make yourself the worst enemy of Zimbabweans.
The voices of the ratpack: silly, moribund, obscurantist, boneheaded, wrongheaded, CLAPTRAP.
The REACTION'S VANGUARD ON THIS SITE IS A SORRY PHENOMENON TO BEHOLD: Ecce the last 'men' of Zimbabwe!
Boneheads unlimited.
Jallohow - you behave like Mugabe's pet. Are cat or a greyhound?
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Atleast being cotton it can be used as toilet paper in the next few weeks when it is made redundant.