Crisis Group’s Senior Consultant for Southern Africa, Piers Pigou has bemoaned the erosion of the majority of Zimbabweans’ purchasing power as the value of the “Funny Money”, the RTGS dollars. Writing on social media on Wednesday, Pigou said:
If you have USD, and only a select do, prices of goods and services are in fact very reasonable; BUT the majority are reliant on this “funny money”, the RTGS $ whose value continues to erode and every day most Zimbabweans see their cost of living climb. Is there an end in sight?
Pigou was commenting on an earlier tweet by journalist and political commentator Hopewell Chin’ono who had said:
To fully understand what is happening to Mthuli Ncube’s economy daily, you should look at the price of goods and the exchange rate.
Bread is now at RTGS$7, that means a teacher’s salary is now worth 49 loaves of bread or 15 bottles of Mazoe. Tomorrow it will be worth fewer loaves!