Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya yesterday urged citizens and industry to come up with an independent body to monitor the bond notes if they were sceptical of government motives.
BY MTHANDAZO NYONI
Addressing delegates at the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) 2016 annual congress, Mangudya implored businesses and general populace to accept bond notes.
“Let’s disagree on the mechanism, when you say what if you overprint, then you can come up with a commission or independent body to manage these bond notes on a daily basis. We have no problem about that because numbers are there,” he said, adding that he was being sincere.
Mangudya said the payment of the 5% bonus to exporters was necessary to sustain and safeguard the multi-currency system in Zimbabwe, with export vouchers to be disbursed to all exporters who have been exporting since May 5, 2016.
He urged the industry to come out clearly on the issue of bond notes.
“I haven’t seen CZI coming out clearly on bond notes. Where are you, you are too quiet,” he said.
In May, RBZ announced plans to introduce bond notes under a $200 million facility guaranteed by the African Export Import Bank, raising fears of the return of the Zimbabwean dollar retired last year.
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The bond notes, according to him, will start circulating in October.
However, Mangudya defended his moves saying the public should not confuse the export incentive or bonus scheme to be paid to exporters in the form of export vouchers called bond notes to assist exporters and generate more foreign exchange as a return of the local currency.
He said if they failed to support exporters, goods such as gold would be smuggled out of the country.
He said it was not feasible to adopt South African rand as a sole medium of exchange, adding it was better to continue with multi-currency exchange system.
Mangudya said Zimbabweans needed to have confidence in their economy.
“We need to grow confidence and trust in this economy. Let’s forget about past Zimbabwe because we are doing new things. Even when things are difficult we need to transform the economy,” he said.
“We need to change the way we are doing things. If we use history to define our future, we will lose value.”
He said fear will make Zimbabweans poorer as the country was faced with two major challenges — current account deficit and narrow fiscal space.
