President Emmerson Mnangagwa earlier today confirmed that Zimbabwe will re-introduce a local currency before 2019 is over.
The President said the multi-currency system was no longer necessary as it was adopted to solve the problems of a decade ago:
Between 2008 and 2009 our country’s currency lost value and some people became billionaires or trillionaires due to high inflation.
At the time Government decided to adopt the multi-currency regime where we started using, the US dollar, Rand, the British Pound or Pula for transacting.
It was a policy measure to address the challenges that were being faced then. We, however, cannot continue going forward without our own currency.
President ED
Mnangagwa also said it’s not possible for the Zimbabwean economy to develop whilst we depend on currencies belonging to other countries:
South Africa has its own currency and when you go there with the US dollar or Euro you would have to convert it to the Rand before you can transact.
The same applies to Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and the UK. A country cannot develop using other nations’ currency.
A currency is only printed by its owners and the only way to get it is through exports, Diaspora remittances or foreign investments but as a country, we should have our own currency and we have embarked on that journey (to have a local currency).
The idea of Zimbabwe introducing a new currency is not new as the Finance Minister admitted as much back in April. Back when the RTGS dollars were introduced in February, many thought this was the government taking a subtle route to introduce a new currency but it seems that was not the case at all.
In January, South Africa’s Finance Minister also made it clear that he felt it would be good for Zimbabwe to reintroduce a local currency, whilst suggesting that South Africa had given some input in this new currency.
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18 comments
Maigot
jus wait pple eyy
we are doomed with these circus clowns in power, things will only get worse… remember 2008….
A times we should put politics aside. Honestly what is wrong if Zim uses its own currency. The question should be of its value rather than critising the whole setup …..for how long would Zimbabwe use the US dollar? Besides we are not Americans……. Let’s stop this sabotage and build Zimbabwe together regardless of political parties. Zanu of or MDC can’t be wrong all the tikes brother can they be correct all times…. Let’s learn yo acvpet zvakanaka. I respect everyone’s opinion including those who may criticise my post. God bless Zimbabwe
Angori ma opinions baba and ma opinion evanhu haangafanane. All of us commenting here have no say in these decisions anyway. Tinongoudzwa zvaakuitwa.
A currency is meant as a mechanism for value transfer, unfortunately in Zimbabwe the government uses it to transfer value from the public to it’s own coffers, hence the distrust. If they could drop the corruption, heavy taxation and circle jerk regulations built to squeeze the povo, perhaps a currency would gain value. Fiat currencies value is based on confidence in a government’s ability to fulfil it’s obligations. No-one has faith in the Zimbabwean government so that currency will just die.
Apparently you have learnt nothing from history. You are the same who said let’s give bond notes a chance.
Glad to see that Chibhagidhi is leaving politics out of it. The problem with a local currency is governance. If the govt can just tell RBZ to create money whenever they need it (whether paper or electronic money) they will keep increasing the money supply without increasing production – and that leads to hyperinflation. So, if we are going to have a local currency and don’t want 2008 again, we must demand transparent governance to control money creation.
All they need is to export and pile up gold diamonds and platinum and uranium and the dollar will work well . It should be kept at 1 usa to 20 or 30 sim filler and that way the goids would be cheaper to export and attract more investors and drain all the jobs in south to Zimbabwe as it will be cheaper to open a company and low wages will call for low cooperation tax and southern african countries would come to Zimbabwe to open factory’s and ship their goods to their respective countries as our production cost would be lower
lets call it the new new new new new PONZI DOLLAR, coming soon… value = 1:1 with no other currency on the planet ….
Waffling and Thinking are two completely different scenarios.
its a bad move because basically for a currency to work among other things people have to trust it.after the government has devalued peoples money twice first during the bearer check era and then during the bond note era people are rightly justified to be sceptical of this new currency and also owing to the fact that it is still the same people in power and roughly the same policies in place.if we as Zimbabweans are sceptical of this new currency why would a big company from another country come and accept that currency basically we become risky business.if policies that are airtight were put in place which safeguard the value of peoples money maybe we would give it a chance but sadly there are none.And a time where we basically have no functioning industries how would we deal with convincing other countries to accept our currency since we rely on imports. we will be back to the 2008 era when companies need foreign currency for imports and those who have it become gods again
Not too smart at all…
Whoever is advising Mnangarwa may the Lord bless him. How can you bring your currency without a support system, we are not producing and we have nothing to export. Just give it a year we will be back in 2008 again wait and see
Thats nonsense new currency for what, are you not seeing that you are following Mugabe’ s steps.. stay away from drugs old man this is too much.
Look I personally think the old man is right for now . Let’s just wait and see what will happen in the next two years because we can’t expect him to fix an economy within a year it’s totally impossible
Let’s wait and see
He needs to involve diaspora guys who have been exposed and worked and educated in the west . Tap in their experience like you taped mthuli ncube . What about adding 20 mp.from the diaspora group