Original version

BBC World Service East Asia

Witness History

Podcasts

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

History as told by the people who were there

History as told by the people who were there.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Witness History: 'The streets of Harare were littered with money'

Documentaries

'The streets of Harare were littered with money'

26/10/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, 'The streets of Harare were littered with money'

Professor Gift Mugano describes when Zimbabwe’s inflation hit 89.7 sextillion per cent

Professor Gift Mugano was an economist in Zimbabwe when the annual inflation rate was 89.7 sextillion per cent.

In November 2008, Johns Hopkins University calculated Zimbabwe’s year-on-year inflation rate as 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% – one of the worst cases of hyperinflation in history.

Professor Gift Mugano was a government economist at the time.

He tells Vicky Farncombe what it was like to live through those times when wages were worthless and there was no food to buy in the shops.

“It was a very painful period. It is a year which one would not want to remember,” he said.

(Photo: Harare shoppers in an almost empty supermaket. Credit: Desmond Kwande/AFP via Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Witness History

'The streets of Harare were littered with money'

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service