Zimbabweans are feeling the wrath of high inflation. The rate of inflation in the southern African country now stands at 131.7 percent in the month of May.

Locals are now helpless as they are now forced to search for cheaper products as a way to survive the overpriced goods at major supermarkets.

In these shops they call trucks, lie the solution to their demise as they can buy cheaper products compared top large supermarkets.

“We buy at the truck shop because they are cheap, their price is not even expensive because there, in the big shops these days, they are expensive. Even their rate is less (than in supermarkets, ed.), at the truck shop they give us the good rates, that’s why we prefer to buy at the truck shop because they are cheap,” a customer said.

Zimbabwe has endure years of fluctuating value of currencies worsened by adoption of US dollar. Many Zimbabweans are now shunning away from major stores that experience frequent fluctuating currency rates when converting to the local Zim Dollar.

“Its cheaper for customers to buy from out here, for instance for a dollar they can get two drinks, instead of one from a supermarket. It’s also because our exchange rate is better than the official rate,” said one vendor.

The black market is also taking a toll on the local Zim Dollar with economists warning of a further deterioration of the local currency if not regulated.

“What we have witnessed over the past weeks is a massive increase in pricing, Zim dollar pricing. This has largely been caused by the very significant depreciation of the local currency that we have seen on the black market or on the parallel market,” said Prosper Chitambara, an economist.

Zimbabwe’s economy is inching toward “full dollarization,” with the local currency facing collapse, local investment firm Inter-Horizon Securities said. It slumped by 34% in April alone-Source: Africa News.

 HARARE – Zimabwe’s upcoming presidential election and compensation of white farmers whose land was seized two decades ago are key to efforts to restructure its crippling debt, the African development bank chief said Monday.

African Development Bank (AfDB) president Akinwumi Adesina and Mozambique’s ex-president Joaquim Chissano, are leading efforts to help Zimbabwe re-engage with the West to clear its US$8.3 billion bilateral and multilateral debt.

“The success of the efforts we have all put into this process will depend on what happens with the upcoming presidential elections,” Adesina said at debt resolution talks with President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare.

He said the international community will be “watching very closely” the vote.

“The full weight of re-engagement with the international community will depend on this… (and) the entire electoral process that guarantees a credible election”.

“Success on the political and electoral reforms, and a free and fair election, are crucial to clear the pathway towards arrears clearance and debt resolution for Zimbabwe,” he added.

Rights groups and opposition parties have complained of a clampdown ahead of elections, whose date is yet to be set.

Chissano, a respected statesman said holding “free and fair elections” and settling the issue of compensation for white former commercial farmers were among “low-hanging fruits” in advancing dialogue with the West and international financial institutions.

“Harvesting these low-hanging fruits is critical as they are likely to trigger decisive action towards arrears clearance and debt resolution,” he said.

Chissano and Adesina last week met members of the US Congress, State Department, Treasury among other agencies to discuss Zimbabwe.

Adesina revealed that the AfDB is working with Zimbabwe to develop “innovative financial instruments and structures that can be used to front-load the mobiliSation of the US$3.5 billion for compensations”, without getting into further debt.

“It is important that we find a mechanism to try to fast-track…the payment of these compensations”.

Zimbabwe’s late ex-president Robert Mugabe launched land reforms in 2000, grabbing white-owned farms to reverse a historical land ownership imbalance that favoured the white minority population.

More than 4,000 of Zimbabwe’s 4,500 white commercial farmers were evicted from their properties, which were given to black tenants.

But in 2020 Mnangagwa, who succeeded Mugabe following a military-led coup, signed a US$3.5 billion deal with dispossessed farmers to compensate them for infrastructure developments on their former land. – Eyewitness News 

BY STAFF REPORTER 

Bhejane Trust rhino monitoring teams recently stumbled on 90 wire snares, industrial cables and food stuff in the Hwange National Park amid suspicions the items  were suspected to be left by poachers in the Sinamatella area.

Trevor Lane, who is the founder of the organisation, said the poachers were suspected to be moving as a group after three spoors were tracked by   the teams that noticed a large pile of ash, which proved to be an active poachers base  with fresh coal on the ash pile.

” There were three fresh poachers’ spoors leaving the base heading further into the park, so the team tracked the spoor for most of the morning and found the poacher’s equipment hidden in a riverbed,” Lane said.

“They then ambushed the equipment thinking that the poachers would return soon to collect the stuff, however, they were there until well after sunset and eventually gave up as nobody had come to collect the equipment, and assumed the poachers had found their tracks and fled.”

Lane said the poachers abandoned 90 wire snares, two rolls of wire used as stays on electricity poles, five metre of industrial cable and 25 kg of mealie meal, among other things.

“The area is the same area where 26 poached impala and four kudu were found  in a  suspected poisoning incident towards the end of last year,”  he   revealed.

Meanwhile, on Thursday last week  police in Victoria Falls arrested two men from Hwange who were found in possession of fresh elephant tusks measuring over 1.2 meters each.

They have since been taken to court.

Although during the Covid-19 lockdowns, the Hwange National Park did not record any poaching cases, concerns are raising over the current trends.