I remembered that in the 1980s the same sweet cost half a cent. Remember the brand called Crystal Sweets? We also called them “Take Twos” because for a cent one got two. Now the same sweet costs US5c.
Carrier bags were given for free in any decent supermarket.On impulse, I decided to check the prices of the following goods:
a single chewing gum US5ca single lollipop US20ca single cabbage head US$1a ballpen such as Eversharp 15 US25ca loaf of bread US$1a bottle of Coke US50ca can of Coke US$1a meat pie US$1,25a single banana US20ca single peach US75ca kg of economy beef US$8a packet of 10 cigarettes US50c
I would have wanted to know how much the same goods are going for, say in New York. The US embassy was not forthcoming with answers for the whole week.I remember before our economy went into a freefall chewing gum were a cent for two, a lollipop (sucker) cost a cent, a cabbage head cost at most 20c, Eversharp 15, as its name suggested was 15c, a loaf of bread was 25c, a coke went for 20c, a meat pie was 25c, with 20c one got all the bananas he desired, peaches were equally cheap when in season, economy beef was about $2 while a packet of 10 cigarettes cost 15c.
Air used to be given free at service stations, now one has to part with a US$1 to have a flat tyre inflated! Then the Zimbabwe dollar was equivalent to US$1,50.So what has happened to the US dollar? Have we dollarised the economy or have we domesticated the US dollar so we can use it whatever way we wish?
Dollarisation would seem to imply that we use the US dollar at the same value it is used in the United States and as its value rises and falls against other international currencies.
This is not what’s happening in Zimbabwe; we have appended our own value to the US dollar. A boiled egg would cost about US5c in New York; in Zimbabwe it costs US20c, that is four times more. This means in Zimbabwe, the US dollar is equivalent to five boiled eggs! What this boils down to is that we have Zimdollarised the US dollar and it is being hit by inflation to the same extent the Zimdollar was battered in the mid-1990s. What explains this? I suppose that’s the question our economists should address.
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I am only worried by the daylight robbery that consumers are subjected to in supermarkets! Is it legal for stores to give customers change in the form of sweets or any other unwanted item for that matter? If it is, who places a value on the sweets and the goods? If it’s legal a customer must be allowed to go back to the same supermarket with 20 sweets and get a loaf of bread. But the supermarkets do not accept this! That is grossly unfair.
Supermarket A has over the past week given me 20 sweets as change; I don’t eat sweets, so I must be able to go back to the same supermarket and exchange the sweets for a loaf of bread; doesn’t that make sense?
No sane person would buy a Crystal sweet for US5c but consumers are forced to buy them at that price for no fault of their own. It is not the consumer’s fault that there are no US coins circulating in the country.
One only has to imagine the amount of money supermarkets are making from the vulnerable public. Busy supermarkets can make as much as UD$200 a day by giving sweets as change. They are doing this while the government watches. They are doing this while the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe remains mum.
There is no single customer who doesn’t have wads and wads of tokens from Spar supermarkets that they have been given as change; at least these can be reused. There is no single consumer who doesn’t have heaps of sweets in their car which they have no use for.
Consumer watchdogs should be out in the shopping malls monitoring how supermarkets address the issue of change. They should not look just at the small picture where a single consumer is given a banana in the place of US20c worth of change. The bigger picture is that thousands of customers around the country have been given bananas as change on a single day. The supermarkets have become unscrupulous as they see this as a source of cheap money. This highly unfair business practice must surely be outlawed.
But what are our legislators doing about this? Zilch! Why do we vote them into power when they cannot address such seemingly small issues which have a huge impact on the pockets of their electors?
We are told it is too expensive to import US coins; what this translates to is that the man in the street must continue to lose his hard-earned cash to unscrupulous businesspeople while our government remains unmoved by this.
Some supermarkets have devised credible ways of going around this; they offer plastic money in the form of cards that can be swiped after every transaction. But there is a catch; it makes the consumer captive to the supermarket because the cards can’t be used at other supermarkets. Consumers have the right to shop around and compare prices.
This right is removed if he/she is forced to buy from the same supermarket. Plastic money would be the way forward if there was some kind of Zimswitch for supermarkets where the card could be used at the supermarket of one’s choice.
But most importantly, the government must address this issue seriously; it’s not as frivolous as it sounds.
BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE
