Zimbabwe runs out of paper to print money

  1. Posted on Monday 28 July 2008 - 09:57
    Mugadza
    Mugadza Munyaradzi, AfricaNews reporter in Harare, Zimbabwe
    Uncertainty is gripping the Zimbabwean government amid fears that it may fail to pay civil servants their monthly salaries. This comes after the Germany company Giesecke & Devrient, that was providing the paper, was pressured by the German government to cut supplies, in protest of the doubtful victory of President Mugabe.
    zimbabwe_money
    In trying to mitigate the effects, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Gideon Gono who on the Zimbabwean sanction list have invested vast amounts of cash in the Kadoma Paper Mills.

    The company revealed that it would produce the paper needed to produce the paper but face an acute shortage of water. However, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) availed funds to drill at least eighty boreholes to cater for the water shortage.

    RBZ is provided Kadoma Paper Mills with money to refurbish the firm which had came face to face with the harsh realities of the economic recession since the past ten years.

    Jura JSP, a Hungarian-Austrian company that provides software licences for the printing and designing the bank notes is still weighing the pros and cons of withdrawing their licence to use software critical to security printing.

    A source at Fidelity Printers which prints money said there was panic because Zimbabwe alone could not afford to print the money.

    "They are in a panic because without the software they can't print anything," the source said.

    Mugabe who was elected on June 27 in a one man election has failed to appoint his cabinet. Its axiomatic that Mugabe cannot rule the country alone soon after his inauguration on the eve of the African Union summit in Egypt the incumbent leader revealed the status quo was open for dialogue with the opposition MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

    Zimbabwe’s inflation ha reached a world record of over 10 million percent and unemployment rate at over 80 percent. The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries is revealed this week that the manufacturing sector fell 27 per cent last year as the country's factories operated at less than 20 per cent of capacity.

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