WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2004-05-27 Time: 11:08:20 Posted By: Jan
‘If police continue like this, we’re all finished’
SOPHIA Mpongo sits on a make-shift stool fashioned from a disused metal crate, a length of lace cloth material spread over her lap, preparing to wrap it round her head into a neat, flat topped turban.
Behind her are rows of neatly arranged cosmetics and a motley of trinkets.
Mpongo is among scores of women who stand to lose business if police continue their blitz on vendors, touts and informal foreign currency dealers.
A recent decision by the central bank to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar against foreign remittances by 632 percent from $824 to more than $5200 has compounded the illegal dealers’ woes.
The white lace turban has become an identity tag for women who depend on exchanging foreign currency for a living on the streets of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.
“If police continue like this we are all finished,” Mpongo says. She says she fears losing her only means of providing for her family, as a single mother.
Scores of women had moved to Bulawayo’s Lobengula Street and Fifth Avenue from towns and cities around the country, swelling the numbers of the illegal foreign currency dealers who prowl the city’s streets in search of customers.
Illegal foreign currency dealers, mainly women, easily recognisable by the lace turbans that hang down to the waist, took advantage of the never-ending foreign currency crisis that has dogged Zimbabwe for close to a decade to make roaring business.
The women had become used to trudging up and down the pavements of Lobengula Street, discreetly asking whoever they thought intended to change the local currency into pula, rand or pound sterling.
But a police blitz on illegal foreign currency dealers is threatening to unhinge Mpongo’s efforts and those of her peers to make a living.
“The war is not over especially against the illegal foreign currency dealers. We will not rest until we stop their operations,” says police spokesman, Inspector Smile Dube.
The once thriving illegal market for foreign currency dealers appears to be gradually losing its lustre following repeated raids by police and the more attractive exchange rates offered by licenced foreign exchange dealers.
Although the women had devised ingenious ways to camouflage their illegal activities such as using their flea market stalls to cover up their clandestine transactions, recent regulations have adversely affected their operations.
Dube said police were now aware that the foreign currency dealers have changed their methods of operating.
“We will get to the bottom of it all,” Dube vowed.
Scores of illegal foreign currency dealers are being arrested daily in a major swoop at the edge of the city following a regulation gazetted recently.
The regulation empowers police to search persons believed to be in possession of large amounts of cash after obtaining a search warrant.
An Anti-Money Laundering Bill currently before Parliament provides for the police to search persons they suspect of holding $5 million without a warrant in cases of emergency.
“We have provided an essential service for those that work in Botswana and South Africa coming on holidays, but the police do not recognise that.
“Instead they arrest us and confiscate our money blaming us for the shortage of foreign currency,” complained 33-year-old Zodwa Murisi
“It is a cat and mouse game here,” she adds.
Since the central bank announced at the end of last year tighter monetary measures to curb foreign currency leakages in the financial sector and shore up dwindling foreign reserves, police have intensified efforts to stop illegal foreign currency dealings.
Some economists have hailed the steps taken by the central bank and predicted the measures would “destroy” the illegal foreign currency market largely blamed for stocking inflation and negatively impacting on the economy.
Others have dismissed the enthusiasm that accompanied the announcement saying the success will only be temporary.
Economic consultant Eric Bloch says unless the measure taken by the central bank are reinforced by political commitment on the part of government, the informal market will continue to thrive.
Eddie Cross, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s economic advisor, scoffed at the “currency auction” introduced by the central bank in a bid to rake in millions of dollars in hard currency.
He says the current practice of attempting to manage and manipulate exchange rates will not work
“The only real market arbiter remains the street – dangerous, illegal and inefficient,” Cross says.
The illegal foreign exchange market, some say will gradually die a natural death if government maintains the Zimbabwean currency revalued to a level that matches the illegal market.
For Mpongo and Murisi exchanging local currency for hard currency or vice versa in the informal market has provided a steady means of earning an income and they vow to continue. “We used to offer customers better rates than the banks. That is why people preferred to deal with us than the banks,” bragged Murisi.
“We are going through hard times finding customers,” she added.
The Zimbabwean dollar has remained overvalued in the wake of dwindling exports and government has remained wedded to an unrealistic exchange rate with major currencies for fear its external debt will balloon to unmanageable levels.
Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200405261117.htm…/p>