The last time Fanuel Mpofu*, a teller at a bank in Bulawayo, the second-largest city in Zimbabwe, bought groceries from a local supermarket for his family of three was in 2017. For two years, he has opted to buy groceries from either Botswana or Namibia. "It's too expensive here. It's much cheaper and better for me to buy groceries from outside the country," he said this week. At Pick n Pay in SA, a 410g can of Koo baked beans costs R11.99, 1kg of Kellogg's corn flakes R61.99, Huggies nappies R179.99 and a 2l bottle of cooking oil R51.99. The same products in Zimbabwe are sold for $8.00 (R112), $12 (R168), $59.99 (R840) and $10 (R140) respectively by the same retailer, which has more than 40 stores in the country. Pick n Pay, which is enjoying a boom in business across the Limpopo River, last month added a store at the newly built Sawanga Shopping Mall in the resort town of Victoria Falls. Working in Mpofu's favour — given the severe foreign-currency shortages of nearly four years —...
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