HARARE: With runaway inflation eating into incomes, staple foods have vanished from the tables of Zimbabweans like Emina Chishangwe, who lives in a poor dormitory town south of the capital Harare.
“I can’t remember the last time I ate meat. It has become a luxury for some of us,” said the 57-year-old single mother of two adult sons. Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, who believes it can only be remedied by the full adoption of the US dollar.
The situation has quickly worsened this year as the Russian invasion of Ukraine compounded with black market foreign exchange has depleted the value of the Zimbabwe dollar. “The parallel market is to blame to a large degree for the spiralling inflation,” AgriBank chief economist Joseph Mverecha told AFP.