In Zimbabwe’s crisis, ‘we cannot talk of Christmas anymore’

A man dressed in a santa claus suit dozes off while sitted in a supermarket in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. No one seems to care.

The holiday mood is not catching on in a country where a currency crisis has forced people to risk jail time to buy basics such as medicine and food. Many Zimbabweans navigate from one currency to another, often tapping the black market, while the government issues salaries in forms of payment it later refuses to accept.

The frustration has created a new round of anti-government sentiment in a country that once saw July’s presidential election, the first without longtime leader Robert Mugabe, as a chance to for a fresh start in the country. New President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the country “open for business.” But citizens are now asking: How this will be possible?

This is the most severe economic meltdown that Zimbabwe has ever experienced, daily transactions have been dominated by the U.S. dollar since the meltdown began more than a decade ago.

The majority of Zimbabweans have expressed unhappiness and shock.

“How can the government refuse to accept the money that it uses to pay its own people. And then arrest us for looking for the only currency that actually works?” he said.

Changing one’s salary into foreign currency can be a nightmare.

Ndlovu gets $450 every month in mobile money. His bank, like every other bank in the country, no longer issues foreign currency for electronic bank balances, even though the government insists that mobile money and bond notes are on par with the dollar.

“The black market is my only option. We are innocent people just trying to survive, but the government has turned us into criminals,” Ndlovu told The Associated Press.

The vice president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Patience Taruvinga, called the mobile money worthless.

“Salaries are being eroded daily,” Taruvinga said, criticizing the new government, which has promised to turn the country into a middle-class economy by 2030. “We cannot talk of Christmas anymore.”

The ongoing currency crisis is causing unrest. In November, thousands of opposition supporters protested in Harare.

Demand for dollars is at an all time high. Police routinely carry out street raids to flush out illegal foreign currency dealers, who have turned to WhatsApp groups to connect with clients.

Many Zimbabweans fear a repeat of a decade ago, when pensions and savings were wiped out by hyperinflation. The signs are worrying. Inflation rose to 28.5 percent in October, the highest since 2009.