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Currency reforms, food hampers dominate Zim press |
The press urged central bank governor Gideon Gono to confront, with all available force, the multi-faceted challenges facing the economy, primarily high inflation and a collapsed currency.
It highlighted the problems the public faced with daily price increases for basic goods and the difficulties related to shortage of cash in the banks, made worse by restrictions on cash withdrawals imposed by the central bank.
The press also dwelt on transacting difficulties associated with the mounting zeros on the national currency, particularly among the less educated.
The bank introduced a Z$100 billion bank note a week earlier, in response to rising inflation.
The press urged the bank to slash the zeros to make life easier for the public to trade, a point which the central bank took into account and removed ten zeros on the Zimbabwe dollar.
Hailing the move, the media said it would count for nothing if monetary and fiscal authorities did not introduce other belt-tightening measures to reign in inflation, among other economic ills.
It also focused on the start of distribution of food hampers among the urban poor by the government in response to rising poverty, a move that followed the introduction of food hampers for the rural folks, who have been devastated by Zimbabwe's economic melt-down.
Media views differed on the programme, with state-owned newspapers praising the move as helping to ease the pain of the urban poor, while urging the authorities to ensure tight security over distribution, to avoid leakages to the untargeted rich.
The private press, however, saw the programme as a vindication of its long-held view that the authorities were bankrupt of ideas to turn around the economy.
"How do you distribute food hampers to the whole country?" was the most common question asked by the private press, wondering "How sustainable is this?"
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