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| A Billion Dollar Note |
HARARE, ZIMBABWE: “No one works here,” my driver to the hotel tells me. “And the few that do, don’t get paid. We
don’t make anything anymore. All the industries have been shut down. We now
have 80% unemployment and have to import everything, even our currency.” The
official currency is the U.S. dollar but try to change a twenty for something
smaller and you’ll get a blank stare. Sometimes you can find someone who will
break a twenty for Botswana pula or South African rand, but at decidedly
disadvantageous rates. Even the banks struggle and are unwilling to
give you more than a couple of fives or maybe, if you’re lucky, five ones; and
those are always blackened and threadbare having passed through thousands of
hands. Of course, there are no U.S. coins. The result is that you often end up
paying more: The 20-minute taxi ride to the hotel cost $30, the hotel room
$200, and a small paperback novel, $25. In 2009, Zimbabwe gave up trying to
keep up with the hyperinflation and went to the U.S. dollar. At the time a two
billion dollar Zimbabwe note was worth one cent. Now street hustlers try to
sell them as souvenirs for several dollars. As we pull up to the heavily
guarded Holiday Inn, I say, “I have only
a $100 bill. Do you have change?” The driver shakes his head; “I can break it for two $50s.” I’m being
taken, I think, and say, “The hotel must
have change?” The driver reluctantly agrees. Half-hour later, I get the
correct change, but only after one of the porters goes to the gas station
across the street.
The
next morning I ask one of the clerks, “With
such high unemployment, how do people survive?” “It’s very difficult,” he sighs. “I’m so grateful that I have a job and one that actually pays. You see
many companies don’t even pay their employees.” “But then how do people survive?” He shakes his head, “Peddling mostly, or doing odd things like
guarding or washing cars.” Outside, I decide to buy the paper. The
headlines read, “$7 Billion circulates in
informal sector.” It seems the government wants to regulate this sector involving
2.8 million people. A government spokesman is reported as saying, “Just imagine if the 2.8 million people were
to pay $1 per month, what that would contribute to our fiscus.” I decide to
dig deeper. There are vendors everywhere. I show the newspaper headline to a
flower vendor. “Are you a part of the
informal sector?” I ask. He doesn’t understand and so I show him the
newspaper. He reads it slowly and carefully and then laughs, “Yes, yes, I am!” “So, what do you think of this idea?” “It’s stupid. It’s a joke. It’ll never happen.” I continue on asking
various vendors and basically get the same response. One vendor, selling
sandals, explains, “We don’t want to do
this. There’s nothing left for us to do. If they would open the factories, we
wouldn’t have to do this. Registering us and collecting taxes will never happen.
If they take away our businesses, what
then?” Harare is a scary place because of all the unemployed young men you
see loitering around, but those peddling are not the problem. They are the country’s
only solution for now. Among them is the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. My
advice to the Zimbabwe government: “Keep
your greedy corrupt hands off them!”
