Zim braces for the worst

ZIMBABWE’S cash-starved economy needs a quick fix, and the government has come up with a solution: bond notes.

Introduced on Monday, the new legal tender is supposed to solve the liquidity crisis. But Zimbabweans are nervous, and rightly so: who can forget what happened the last time President Robert Mugabe’s regime started printing money?

After months of speculation, on Monday morning Zimbabweans finally got to see what a bond note looks like. The pseudo-currency will come in denominations of $2 and $5, and have an official value of 1:1 with the US dollar.

As the government explains it — and especially Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya, whose brainchild this supposedly is — the bond notes will solve Zimbabwe’s crippling liquidity crisis, which has seen cash begin to disappear from the economy. In theory, bond notes can be used in lieu of the US dollars on which Zimbabweans have relied since 2009, when the Zimbabwean dollar was officially abandoned following levels of hyperinflation last seen in Germany’s Weimar Republic.

But those US dollars are fast running out. Part of the problem is that Zimbabwe imports most of what it consumes, so businessmen keep sending dollars outside of the country; another part is the notes that remain are so old and tatty that they are beginning to disintegrate.

A normal solution to this kind of problem would be to request a fat loan from the international community. This option is not really available to Robert Mugabe’s administration, which remains an international pariah. Efforts to access funding from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have been stymied by the regime’s signal failure to implement meaningful economic reforms.

Plan B is bond notes. In isolation, the idea is not terrible. Bond coins — locally-minted coins that have replaced US cents — are already in circulation, so that goods do not have to be sold in $1 increments. They have been accepted without a fuss. So why not do the same thing, just on a larger scale?

A crucial element to the plan is that bond notes will not be forced on anyone. They will be introduced into the economy by way of a 5% “export credit”: anyone who exports goods worth US$100 will get a $5 bond note bonus from the government. And, according to Reserve Bank spokespeople, the bond notes will be redeemable for real US dollars at the fixed 1:1 exchange rate at any time.

So far so good. But Mugabe’s gov- A man holds the new two bond notes outside a bank on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue on Monday.

ernment has failed to take into account one crucial factor which looks likely to derail the entire project: trust.

All currencies are based on trust. Those little pieces of paper we carry around in our wallets have almost zero intrinsic value. They are only as valuable as we believe them to be; and as valuable as government guarantees them to be.

Therein lies the problem. Few Zimbabweans have any trust in Mugabe’s government, especially on economic matters. And who can blame them? When Mugabe began printing money in the mid-2000s, to fund his upcoming election campaign, he triggered perhaps the most severe economic collapse in post-colonial African history. Savings evaporated, pensions were wiped out, productive businesses went bankrupt. People starved. People died.

In Harare, earlier this month, I asked every person I transacted with whether they would accept the new bond notes: taxi drivers, street vendors, hotel owners, supermarket cashiers, minibus drivers, vegetable sellers. The response was universal, and unequivocal: No. In this response lies the seed of a new hyperinflation crisis. Do not expect bond notes to hold their value — or, ultimately, any value.

Nor did anyone seem to believe that the bond notes would be introduced in the orderly, measured way described by the Reserve Bank. People seemed convinced that their hardearned US dollars would be replaced without their consent. “I’m trying

to withdraw my US dollars, because I think they will put bond notes in my account instead,” said a security guard I spoke to outside a major bank. “I can’t pay my rent with bond notes.”

Most concerned are civil servants. The government is the largest employer in the country, and it has been struggling to make payments to staff all year. Will it start paying staff in bond notes? Already, reports have surfaced that soldiers are first in line to receive bond notes, and that defence force boss General Constantino Chiwenga has been visiting barracks to try to defuse potential unrest.

If Zimbabwe’s government really is planning on paying its soldiers in their new pseudo-currency, it would be a sign of how desperate Mugabe has become. Any dictator knows to pay his soldiers first — in real money — or else.

Amid the economic doom and gloom, Zimbabwe’s increasingly vocal — and increasingly unified — civil society senses an opportunity. Organisations like #ThisFlag and Tajamuka are planning a series of protests against the bond notes. They are convinced that bond notes are another government scam to fill the coffers of the political elite, at the expense of the country, but they also hope that the economic crisis may hasten Mugabe’s departure.

They might be right. The old man is looking weaker than ever, and the vultures are circling. And if there's one thing we know for sure, it is that none of his enemies can be bought off with bond notes.

As part of its mandate, the ZPP monitors violations of women's rights and has come to realise that depriving women of education results in their being deprived of a myriad of rights. The ZPP is inspired, in its peace-building initiatives, to include awareness-raising on gender-based violence, women's human rights and children's rights.

The ZPP is aware that both boys and girls are vulnerable to different forms of violence in and around the education system. This partly stems from Zimbabwe being a patriarchal society with deeply rooted gender norms, stereotypes, systematic inequalities and unequal power dynamics based on gender. As the country goes through the El Niño-induced drought, it is also paramount to recognise that poverty and hunger exacerbate the vulnerability of women and children. In Goromonzi South an increasing number of children, most of whom are girls, are dropping out of school due to hunger and opting to offer manual labour in exchange for vegetables and other basic food commodities. The ZPP calls on the responsible Ministry as well as the school institutions to play a transformative role in shifting harmful gender norms like girls dropping out of school to fend for their families. The ZPP has also noted with concern that women bear the brunt of discrimination on political lines when food and other aid are distributed. This affects peace in the home and in the world. We therefore demand that the responsible authorities take seriously complaints of food being distributed along political lines.

Women unfortunately became targets and also witnessed some gruesome acts of violence in the run up to the Norton by-election and during some of the protests. The ZPP therefore implores government to adopt comprehensive, gender-responsive and multisectoral action plans to eliminate gender-based violence and enact laws that will protect women and girls from all forms of violence.

As the ZPP continues to monitor and document human rights violations, it is concerned that the number of women affected by the violations far exceeds the number of similarly affected men. While women are direct victims of human rights violations, their situation is made worse as most men affected by human rights violations are related to a woman in one way or the other.

In its community initiatives, the ZPP has learnt that peaceful communities are better placed to end harmful social and cultural beliefs. We have hosted sporting tournaments that place women and girls as equal and capable competitors in a bid to use the platforms to address conflicts that risk tearing apart whole communities.

The prevention of violence against women and girls should not just be a cause for concern for Zimbabwe and other countries around the world during the 16 days of activism but it should be a culture that is adopted and fostered throughout the year.

The ZPP challenges all responsible stakeholders to adopt an attitude that is conscious of bringing down violence against women and girls.

The ZPP was founded in 2000 by a group of faith-based and human rights NGOs working and interested in human rights and peace-building initiatives. ZPP has become a vehicle for civic interventions in times of political crises. In particular, the ZPP seeks to monitor and document incidents of human rights violations and breaches of peace.