Zimbabwe: a crippled economy just got worse

We spend a lot of time complaining about money. As a Welshman living in London, I still haven’t worked out the exchange rate between bales of wool and pounds sterling, which means that I continually overspend every month. Payday invokes warm little feelings down below for me, which is why my girlfriend refuses to talk to me on the first of the month.

Of course, rent, bills and the Xbox soon suck the newfound euphoria back out of my loins. But, for that two days a month I can be called solvent, I am happy.

So imagine what it would be like if your employer turned round and refused to pay you in real money.

Public sector employees in Zimbabwe are now being paid in coupons printed by the CBZ (a private bank) and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Each coupon is ostensibly worth US$20, but this value isn’t actually printed on the coupons. In fact, one of the coupons has the worrying phrase, “This voucher cannot be exchanged for cash”.

Supposedly, they can be redeemed at any Forex shop, but one worker was unable to exchange his coupons at five different shops. They can also be deposited in a foreign currency account, but there is a worry that the banks won’t have enough money to pay out.

Coupons are not money, no matter what country you live in

Zimbabwe is not exactly noted for its banking system, but this is a scary development. We spend a lot of time worrying about crises in the Middle East, but almost no thought is put in about countries like Zimbabwe, possibly because the Western world makes a lot of money through schemes like this: effectively making people work for no pay. Zimbabwe is awash with human rights violations and petty criminals in government positions. Their economy is in tatters, with the highest rate of inflation in the world. This coupon scheme is evil, and yet strangely unsurprising.

I’m not going to preach about this. But next time you get paid in real money, spare a thought for the Zimbabweans, who put the ‘servile’ back into ‘civil service’.

Click here for more information about the situation in Zimbabwe
Click here to be taken to the Amnesty International website