Commodity prices Zimbabwe

These days anyone you talk to in Zimbabwe tell you,"Izinto sezitholakala kodwa ziyadura" Stuff is available only they are expensive.This is true of bread ,meat dairy products mobile hones and computers.Obviously the common man is worried about food and clothing.Also worrying to the common and the rich alike is accommodation.

The introduction of the American currency has done wanders but it has also reduced the buying power of those of us in the diaspora.Gone are the days when paying a builder could cost £20 and still buy a quality service.Gone are the days when sending money home meant a £100 would be so much a whole village would talk about it.Gone.

According to some advertisements anything from £10 000 pound could buy one a house in Zimbabwe now,well a house.Houses of a certain calibre obviously cal for a lot of dosh.I have seen houses that only millionaires (real millionaires) can dream of.I have seen such houses going for a possible maximum of about £500 000.Residential land has also gone from a few hundreds to tens of thousands but that's relatively affordable.

Luxury goods are expensive because of them being imports.Mobile Phones have gone down from the peak of the regime's ineptitude .As at now one can buy a privately sold i-phone for about £500.Airtime that was once exorbitantly priced is fairly priced now.The last time I was in Zimbabwe a Sim card was anything around R600-R1000.Now the Sim cards are more available and not madly price anymore.Mobile phones though some are still expensive some are quite fairly priced.Simple nokias samsungs and the like are quite fairly priced both as used and new.

Cars as well have become more relatively available in both price and stock levels.There is quite an assortment of cars for sell be they new or used.The sad thing is they are almost all imported.That obviously spells bad news for people like Willowvale motor industries,Quest,Lonrho and other car or vehicle industries.

I am not quite happy with all this.We are in the happier times than before the GNU but we are in a deceptive phase.A period when things that are OK are OK because of temporary arrangements.The use of the USdollar and the ZARRand is not a solution .He use of imported commodities is not the best.What we need is a return to the days when we had almost 100% Zimbabwean products in food stores and at least more than 50% local produce elsewhere.We just have to be a normal producer/consumer not just be South Africa's supermarket shelf with a few East Asian goods here and there.