Economics

Pensioners Sleep Outside Zimbabwe Banks as Savings Vanish Again

  • Slump in savings value is second collapse in a decade
  • Zimbabwe’s dollar has plunged since its June introduction

Pensioners queue to withdraw their pensions outside a branch of the Central African Building Society in Harare.

Photographer: Cynthia R Matonhodze/Bloomberg
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As hundreds of pensioners line up outside a bank in central Harare in the hope of collecting their pensions, military veteran Elias Nyabunzi has a sense that he has seen this all before.

If there is cash available, he will collect the equivalent of just $26, down from the $400 he was getting a few months back. A decade ago when he went to collect the lump sum he was also entitled to after 25 years in the army he was given just $1. The rest had been eaten away by hyperinflation, he was told.