Zimbabwe – when a run on the bank is a good thing
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008It will be a tense day in Harare today as members of the ZCTU and other Zimbabwean civil society organisations assemble symbolically outside their banks to protest at the management of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe under governor Gideon Gono.
The Bank is limiting cash withdrawals to $500,000 a week, though under mounting civil pressure has agreed to increase this to $100,000,000. This staggering amount (even after the country already devalued the dollar by 10 zeros back in June this year) is still not enough to buy a week’s worth of food and medicines (at the time of a serious outbreak of Cholera), and amounts to the Bank in effect appropriating ordinary people’s own money, leaving them unable to spend what savings they have whilst they’re still worth something. (more…)
