Back to Index

Mobiles beat Zimbabwe fuel queues
Lucy Fleming, BBC News
May 21, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6660637.stm

Text messages from abroad have never been received so eagerly by cash-strapped Zimbabweans.
The "beep beep" signals an end to hours spent queuing at petrol stations.

"Hey... you have been sent a Mukuru Voucher for 40 litres of Petrol from..." reads the message.

A voucher number follows which allows the recipient to swap the pin number for coupons redeemable at certain garages.

This is all the handiwork of Mukuru.com - a website set up by Zimbabweans in the UK to help their fellow countrymen in the diaspora pay for petrol, satellite TV or transfer money to their friends and relatives at home.

It properly got off the ground last year, and its customers are steadily growing as news of it spreads.

Little fuss

Within seconds of opening an account and sending an order to a grateful guinea pig in Zimbabwe, I received an email from Mukuru.

"Shamwari Lucy, Uri bho here? (friend, how are you?)" it began in conversational Shona.

"Thanks a bunch for using Mukuru.com - we have sent an email to (your friend) notifying them of the order below."

The next morning, another email arrived to tell me the funds had cleared and a voucher had been issued.

At the same time, my friend in the capital, Harare, got a text message and went off to collect the petrol coupons - valid for three months. Forty litres costs $40 - the going black market rate.

Several days later they went to fill their car, with little fuss from one of Zimbabwe's garages allowed to import fuel using foreign currency.

"I arrived there at 3pm and looked in the book and they must've sold more than 500 litres that day," my friend said.

Groceries

I was left in no doubt about my generosity, receiving texts to let me know about every moment of the transaction right up until the petrol was gushing into the tank.

For one of the founding members of Zimbuyer.com - another new website allowing Zimbabweans to buy groceries for people at home - this control is what makes these services popular.

"They're a lot of people who left Zimbabwe and, for example, have left their children over there," he told the BBC News website.

"But sometimes the money they have sent home for the care of their children is diverted into other things.

"With our service, people buy the stuff - we deliver them to the recipients so they know that they're buying."

Shopping on Zimbuyer - run by a team of four in the US and UK - is like doing a supermarket shop online in the UK, with a little less software finesse.

The prices are marked in British pounds, but the products are Zimbabwean staples such as sadza maize, Cashel Valley Baked Beans and Ingrams Camphor Cream - delivered to addresses in Harare, Chitungwiza and Bulawayo.

Lifeline

Zimland.com offers a similar service for customers from 52 OK supermarket branches nationwide. Its website says it gives Zimbabweans abroad "a quick and efficient way of ensuring their families did not starve in Zimbabwe".

With Zimbabwe's economy spiralling out of control, high unemployment and one of the highest HIV rates in the world, people in the diaspora can literally provide a lifeline.

UK-based Dr Brighton Chireka and his wife Prisca, a nurse, have set up Beepee Medical Services, allowing Zimbabweans abroad to pay for doctor's appointments, prescription drugs and surgery for relatives at home.

"Mostly we're running it as a service to help people," Dr Chireka told the BBC News website, adding that since its launch last September BPMS now gets about two consultation bookings ($30 an appointment) a day.

"It should be able to pay itself... We've employed people who are working full-time in Zimbabwe. This side it's on a part-time basis to answer the calls."

Dr Chireka says they have to review their prices every two or three weeks because of the rampant inflation which stands at 3,731.9% - a climate ripe for a flourishing black market.

This is something Zimbabwe's no-nonsense central bank governor is keen to stamp out.

Legal

Last year Gideon Gono banned several money transfer agencies, accusing them of abusing their licences by doing deals on the black market.

Zimbuyer says their service - which at the moment attracts about 10 customers a day - is a way around this for Zimbabweans abroad who are loath to send money back at the official rates.

Last week, the black market rate was Z$29,000 to US$1 - compared to the long-standing official rate of Z$250 to US$1. This week, the black market rate for the US dollar has risen by Z$4,000.

"The government it is cracking down on the black market or foreign currency dealers - they buy money in Zimbabwe or take the wealth outside Zimbabwe which is something we're not doing," the Zimbuyer spokesman - which imports most of the products - told the BBC.

"I think Zimbabwe would be dead right now if wasn't for imports - it would be on its knees."

Mukuru.com also allows customers to transfer money - at the black-market rate - to accounts in Zimbabwe; it has also started this service to South Africa.

Their customer service line says a "dispersment agent" deposits the money in Zimbabwe.

All the services are clearly being careful not to antagonise Mr Gono, and offer tight security and the online payment system PayPal for their clients.

And as Mukuru's petrol fame spreads, what are Zimbuyer's most popular products?

"Cooking oil and sugar - right now we've run out of the sugar we have it bought in from Botswana.

"And power generators are proving popular because the electricity always goes off nearly every day."

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP