EDITORIAL COMMENT: Let’s ignore social media falsehoods

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Rumours can be very dangerous.  At a social level, they can cause a collapse of marriages or families. At an economic level, they can cause a collapse of businesses or entire markets. In political circles they have been used to unseat governments. They often move fast, faster than the truth, sometimes causing mayhem before the truth sets in.

In recent years, our country has had a fair share of political and outrightly malicious rumours suspected to be initiated by some in the opposition. The idea is generally to try to engender a sense of alarm and despondency among the public and cast Zanu-PF and its government in bad light.

One rumour that was peddled a few months ago was that the Government was preparing to reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar. The public was justifiably alarmed but the Government assured the people that the local currency would not return any time soon. It will only return, the Government said, after fundamentals are right to back a currency such as when industrial production rose to more meaningful levels or when the economy has harnessed enough gold reserves to back a viable currency. The rumour died down.

However, over the past few days, a new one spread on social media to the effect that the country would soon face a shortage of basic commodities, adding on to a shortage that we already have, that of cash. This caused much anguish among our people as they were reminded of the economic crisis of the 2004-2007 period when hyperinflation emptied supermarkets and factories of basic commodities. While they disappeared from the formal market, the basics were abundant on the streets where they were being sold in foreign currency which we did not have. It was a horrific, painful three-year experience that our people will not want to endure once again.

This is the raw nerve the alarmists attempted to touch over the past few days. A few in the business sector actually swallowed the rumour and were, on Saturday afternoon, warning their customers that they were going to start reducing items a customer could buy from yesterday.  Some had also increased prices of items such as cooking oil, sugar and so on.

Some of our people believed the falsehood as it came as the shortage of cash is persisting. People have truly struggled over the past 18 months or so in accessing cash. The cash shortage has birthed a three-tier pricing system as well as a re-emergence of unscrupulous people selling cash.

It is indeed sad that there are some among us who want to cause unnecessary psychological suffering of our people by initiating and spreading fake stories.

The idea is to try to say that the Government is failing and make people turn away from their Government. With elections looming, there is a possibility that we will see more of this rumour-mongering for political purposes.

We are glad that the Government has moved swiftly to set the record straight — that there is no risk of a shortage of basic commodities and that the Reserve Bank will not print more bond notes to buy all US dollars on the market.

“The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe wishes to advise the public that social media messages that are circulating and suggesting that there are going to be shortages of basic commodities in Zimbabwe are false and malicious,” said RBZ Governor, Dr John Mangudya, in a statement at the weekend.

“These messages are meant to cause anxiety, panic, alarm and despondency to the unsuspecting and peace-loving members of the public. All such false and malicious statements should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve. Peddling of such fake news is quite unfortunate. There are no shortages of basic commodities in Zimbabwe. On the contrary, foreign exchange allocation for basic and essential commodities has been increased to ensure that shortages of commodities do not occur within the economy.”

He criticised those involved in illegal currency trading for spreading false information to drive premiums, and therefore their ill-gotten profits on the parallel market. Dr Mangudya also made it clear that the RBZ hasn’t and will not print bond notes to clean the market of US$.

Zanu-PF has also come out trashing the rumours and setting the record straight.

Those spreading such false information must be told in no uncertain terms that they are committing a crime by doing so. They can be arrested for spreading alarm and despondency and be prosecuted for that.

We encourage citizens to remain calm.  In addition, they should not engage in panic-buying or in forwarding the false messages, thus unwittingly spreading the rumours.  Businesses too need to adhere to ethical trading by not setting multi-tier pricing systems or creating artificial bottlenecks on the market. These don’t grow the economy, but destroy it.

The public and markets must be assured that the Government will not be irresponsible as to print more money than is necessary or create circumstances that will trigger a flight of basic commodities from the formal market.  We look forward to the rolling out of the $600 million nostro stabilisation facility this week to ensure that a foreign currency shortage is averted.

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