‘Terminal 5 terminated elections’ claims Ambassador NoLies

A baggage handler employed part time by BAA, the company responsible for the present chaos at Heathrow airport, has admitted to loosing over 3 million diasporas’ votes all ticked in President Mugabe’s favour.

Answering questions put to him by the BBC, Ambassador NoLies said

‘The baggage handler, who has since absconded, was repeatedly beaten on the soles of his feet for 16 hours till he finally admitted that he lost the baggage with all the crucial votes. It is because of these missing votes that we cannot declare the results of the election yet.’

Asked what the government of Zimbabwe was going to do about it, Ambassador NoLies replied,

‘We have contacted all the people who voted and they have agreed to allow the electoral commission to redo their votes for them. This of course takes time, but we can assure the people of Zimbabwe that this will be completed before the next freely held general election in the very far distant future.’

Meanwhile---

Trying to get your head around Zimbabwe’s inflation is a task that even the world’s best economists can’t figure out. I mean, how long can you just keep printing money?

Today, what is now considered the world’s highest denomination note, the new Z50 million dollars, is worth just 45 pence on the black-market, yet the official exchange rate is 60,000 to the pound. That means, officially, this note is worth an amazing 833,000 British pounds! How crazy is this shit! Some cleaver entrepreneurs are making some nice pocket money on EBay. Yesterday one of these notes shifted for £21, but already the market is getting flooded, so the prices are plummeting.

Thing is of course, is that you can’t exactly walk into a bank in Zim with your 50 mill and ask for the Forex, not unless your name is Mugabe and co. Ironically enough, the very people who left Zimbabwe are the ones still propping up the regime. Some Forex comes from the dribble of minerals still being mined but the bulk is from money sent from abroad by the Diaspora to their suffering relatives. This all lands up on the black-market where the regime gobbles up as much as they can. As long as they can keep printing money (or getting firms to print for them), they reckon they could go on for…ever!

I liked this version of inflation recently published in The Independent titled –

Africa Unscrambled: How to make money in Zimbabwe - get drunk

Quoting from South Africa's Business Day in the middle of last year, when Zimbabwe's inflation was a mere 5,000 per cent, the newspaper reported the following investment advice:

"If you had purchased Z$1million of Time Bank stock a year ago, it would

be worth Z$49 now. With ENG you would have Z$16.50 of the original Z$1m

left. If you had invested in Kondozi Farm you would be left with Z$5 today.

But if you had bought Z$1m worth of beer a year ago and drunk it, you would

stand to pocket a cool Z$140m by just returning the empties now and cashing

in on the deposit."