Night bazaars flourish in Zimbabwe currency woes hit traditional stores

People in Zimbabwe are shunning traditional grocery stores to do their shopping at informal and illegal markets that pop up at night to avoid police raids that are rampant during the day.

The government had hoped the introduction of a new currency in April would resolve a long running money crisis that has seen the southern African countries introduce six currencies so far.

But it is now depreciating and hurting licensed stores that are forced by law to accept it.

Unregulated informal traders meanwhile charge their goods exclusively in the more stable dollar to make their prices significantly lower.

As the new currency volatility pushes prices up, the traditional stores face collapse, economists say.

But from dusk, sidewalks, store or office verandahs and car parking spaces burst into unorthodox open-air bazaars, offering anything from groceries to fresh meat, electronics, clothes, medicines, fashion accessories and stationery.

Unfettered by expenses such as rising energy costs, taxes and laws that force formal retailers to accept the local currency at artificially low official exchange rates, informal traders, including children, offer better bargains.

A box of juice that sells for $3 in a supermarket costs half the price on the street.

“It’s really affordable,” says 30-year-old shopper Batsirai Pabwe, expressing relief at managing to fill a plastic bag with items for just $20.

Street vendor Oswald Gari only works at night once the police leave but says “business is booming.”

The 51-year-old fends for his six children and four nephews under his care.

He harbors no hope of finding formal employment in a country where once roaring industrial sites are being turned into giant warehouses for imported goods, many which end up on the streets, and rail tracks are now overgrown with weeds.

More than 80% of Zimbabwe’s employable population eke out a living in the informal sector, according to official figures and the International Labor Organization.

The once-prosperous African nation of 15 million people introduced a new gold-backed currency called ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold, in April to replace one that had been battered by depreciation and often outright rejection by the people.

It was the sixth attempt at a new currency since the spectacular 2009 collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar and adoption of the U.S. dollar as legal tender amid hyperinflation of 5 billion percent, one of the world’s worst currency crashes to date.

The U.S. dollar has remained legal tender alongside successive local currencies.

The latest currency, the world’s newest, came with pomp and fanfare.

The president was pictured inspecting gold vaults and promotional catchy jingles and songs played repeatedly on public radio, television and online.

Seven months on, the ZiG seems to be tanking like its predecessors.

The gap between official and black market exchange rates continues to widen, with many people and informal traders who dominate the economy again preferring the more stable dollar.

Traditional stores, forced by authorities to charge using the local currency, are increasing prices to make ends meet.

But they have also become uncompetitive against unregulated informal markets, the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe, an industry representative group, said in September.

It warned of store closures, saying the situation was “clearly untenable”.

Pick n Pay is one of Africa’s biggest grocery chains that operates more than 70 stores jointly with a local partner in Zimbabwe.

In October, it said that it had ‘impaired” its investment in Zimbabwe “to a book value of zero” because of the “deteriorating economic conditions.”