ZimBollar: A guide to Zimbabwe's black market

As Zimbabwe suffers severe money shortages, businesses are closing, food shelves in Harare are emptying and prices of basic commodities, fuel and medicines are soaring. The price of a two-litre bottle of cooking oil has reached $US10.

After the Zimbabwean dollar crashed in runaway inflation, Zimbabweans turned to US dollars, South African rands and the Euro to trade daily goods and services. In 2016 the Zimbabwean government ignored the public outcry and introduced a quasi-currency in the form of bond notes. As a result an alternative black market is booming.

ZimBollar is an anonymous Twitter account providing information and pricing on this alternative market.

GroundUp interviewed ZimBollar, who describe themselves as "a group of young activists who have identified an information gap about Zimbabwe´s illegal, alternative currencies markets. We track the illegal currencies street markets and bring the story and reality to ordinary Zimbabweans on social media using Twitter".

"Between us we have a finance specialist, economist, a lawyer and a mathematician."

"The Zimbabwe illegal parallel market accounts for over 90% of cash transactions happening in the country. Hence ordinary Zimbabweans' huge interest in our findings and digital posts," the group claims.

They have over 21,000 Twitter followers. Bloomberg news has cited the ZimBollar index.

"We have chosen to remain secret - in the shadows - because we risk being misunderstood. What we are tracking for all intents and purposes is an illegal market … We check the illegal money rates on streets, cross-check performance of the official state stock exchange, and cross-check with the Johannesburg stock market and inform ordinary Zimbabweans."

To source the information the group uses "secret point persons in four major towns of Zimbabwe to gauge the money markets. They are not traders or buyers. Just eyes. In various WhatsApp groups we bring together traders and buyers where we pose as mystery shoppers to scoop intelligence."

"Rates are verified via an internal [undisclosed] algorithm to ensure accuracy. The mean average of all rates is what we circulate to the public via Twitter. We try to judge direction of street trades and public sentiments via our surveys."

Initially, Twitter blocked the group. "On the second day of our presence on Twitter, someone made a report on Twitter, alleging that we were illegal money market traders bent on using Twitter as a medium. Twitter closed our account. We appealed and produced evidence that we were legitimate people with our only intention being to communicate our findings on Zimbabwe currencies realities. In no time, we were cleared, and our account was up and running."

Here are examples of tweets from ZimBollar:

WARNING TO OUR FOLLOWERS

As ZimBollar we do not solicite to do trades on the basis of the rates we qoute. We are a team of RESEARCHERS and not traders. We urge our followers to exercise caution as they interact on our platform to avoid FRAUDSTERS.

Thank you

ZimBollar Team

— Zim Bollar Index (@ZimBollar) October 15, 2018

The Alternative Market enters CHAOS TERRITORY as the RTGS/USD rate breaches the 250% mark to hit 290%, urging closer to the OMIR which stood at 357%:

RTGS/USD 290% ($3.90)
Bond/USD 250% ($3.50)
RTGS/Bond 10% ($1.10)
OMIR 357%@BrezhMalaba @Mathuthu pic.twitter.com/Bc9JNCZ0Z1

— Zim Bollar Index (@ZimBollar) October 17, 2018

A bullish trend is fast establishing in the Alternative Market as the RTGS/USD rate hits 200%, with the OMIR rate dropping sharply to 426%:

RTGS/USD 200% ($3)
Bond/USD 180% ($2.80)
RTGS/Bond 10% ($1.10)
OMIR 426%@BrezhMalaba @Mathuthu @zimlive pic.twitter.com/Azkaf4i56r

— Zim Bollar Index (@ZimBollar) October 16, 2018

Govt of Zim spent $3.86b against a budget of $2.46b resulting in an expenditure overun of $1.39b in the half year Jan+June 2018.This was largely driven by Employment Costs which stood at $1.8b and capital+net lending to fund infrastructure, inputs, and parastatals.@BrezhMalaba pic.twitter.com/XxifQJCJsj

— Zim Bollar Index (@ZimBollar) October 16, 2018

In a country desperate for timeous financial information in the midst of a volatile, troublesome economy, ZimBollar appears to be providing a service that thousands of Zimbabweans desperately want.