Joseph Chirume
As the Zimbabwean economy continues its freefall, money traders are raking in a lot of profit by paying people half the value of the United States dollars that are old and soiled.
Zimbabweans have been using its own dollar but the currency has lost value prompting the government to allow the use of the American dollars on condition that traders will continue accepting the weak Zimbabwean currency.
Most Zimbabweans don’t bank their USD notes as they fear the banks will pay them in the local currency instead of the American dollar they banked and shop owners are demanding American dollars because the local currency has little value.
Interestingly, the same shop owners are not accepting the old and soiled USDs and are demanding new and clean notes which are hard to find.
Unscrupulous money changers have grabbed this opportunity and are exchanging the old USD notes but paying half their value.
Zimbabwean John Manyima recently struggled to change an old USD100 note in order to pay bus fare to South Africa. The money had been rejected by several shops in Harare because it was old. He said he was eventually given 50% by a currency trader.
He told Scrolla.Africa, “It’s not easy to change old notes in Zimbabwe because shops are demanding clean USD notes which are not available. People end up getting half the value of their money because they have no options,” he said.
John Nyimo, who is a cross border money trader, said he charges 40% per transaction.
He spends time in Harare and Johannesburg changing money.
“The Zimbabwean economy is collapsing fast and people are becoming cruel,” he said.
They have totally rejected the local currency and the USD is back in the market.”
He said people are struggling to cash their old USDs they had saved because shops say they are old.
“I am their hope and I take 40% per every transaction. I know where to cash the money where they don’t charge a commission.”
But the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe has urged traders to accept the old notes.
In a statement they said their policy includes all denominations of Federal Reserve notes from 1914 to the present.
“US government policy is that all designs of US Federal Reserve notes remain legal tender or legally valid for payments, regardless of when they were issued,” they said.
The Zimbabwean government recently arrested more than 100 shop owners and traders who had refused to accept the Zimbabwean dollar. They were accused of violating the Bank Use Promotion Act.
