Swindled again!
February 16th, 2006
I bought the newspaper this weekend, and was horrified to see the announcement that the Reserve Bank fuel coupons are going to be discontinued – in fact, invalid – from the end of February. My brother, who works in South Africa, gave me some Rand on his last visit up, and I thought it would be a good plan to buy some of these fuel coupons with it. But for months there has been no petrol available at the garages which take these coupons – diesel, yes – but no petrol. Not much good to me. So I’m told that I can redeem the coupons at the place where I bought them, but guess what – I don’t get my Rand back – they pay me out in Zim dollars. Presumably that will be at the official rate, which is nowhere near the real, parallel, rate…. (and didn’t they say something last year about they were going to determine the bank rate by supply and demand – but they’ve just gone and back- tracked again).
