The now routine long lines of customers outside of banks eased on Tuesday for the first time in two months after Zimbabwe’s central bank launched new temporary bank notes printed in full only on one side.
The poor quality notes, valid as legal tender until January 31, are the latest in a series of desperate and unorthodox measures intended to bolster the struggling economy and end acute shortages of cash in this troubled Southern African country.
The so-called ”bearer cheques” resemble bank notes but will only be valid as legal tender until January 31, the Reserve Bank said.
The notes were issued to banks on Tuesday in denominations of Z$5 000, Z$10 000 and Z$20 000 amid fears they were open to easy forgery, even by photocopying.
The highest existing denomination bank note is Z$500, or 60 United States cents at the official exchange rate of 824-1 or about 10 US cents at the black market rate of 5 000-1.
The new notes are also available in automatic teller machines.
In recent weeks, Zimbabweans have taken to waiting several days in bank lines to draw their money or cash pay checks. Some have slept on the sidewalk outside their banks to secure a place at the front of the lines.
Customers said they were served with the new notes after waiting for as little as 20 minutes in swift-moving lines on Tuesday.
The central bank said it was releasing nearly Z$9-billion at the official rate (or $2-million at the black-market rate) this week.
A total of Z$390 billion ($470 million or $80 million) of the new notes is to be released, nearly double the value of existing conventional bank notes in circulation.
The dramatic increase in money supply was expected to spur already record inflation.
Inflation rose to a record 426% in August, one of the highest in the world.
Zimbabwe is suffering shortages of local money blamed on its runaway inflation, the central bank’s inability to print conventional notes quickly enough and hoarding of money amid uncertainty in the crumbling economy.
The government has resisted calls to introduce large denomination bank notes, citing fears they would further fuel inflation.
It argues the temporary notes, printed with a faint watermark and a simple security thread compared to elaborate security features on conventional notes, will restore consumer spending and revive productivity in the economy.
In another unique attempt to ease the currency crisis, the central bank last month issued a range of new local travelers’ cheques valid only in Zimbabwe in denominations of up to Z$100 000 that it said were legal tender accepted by major stores and businesses.
Some stores, however, refused to accept the travelers’ cheques that were described as ”funny money” vulnerable to forgery and fraud.
The nation is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
The deepening economic crisis is blamed partly on the state programme that seized thousands of commercial farms from white farmers for redistribution to black Zimbabweans.
The state-owned Herald newspaper raised its cover price on Tuesday to Z$500 (60 US cents at the current official exchange rate, or 10 US cents at the black-market rate), up from Z$300. In 1985, five years after independence, the paper cost 10 Zimbabwe cents. — Sapa-AP