Industrialists and businesses have urged the government to stop the introduction of bond notes and replace them with the South African rand to ease debilitating cash shortages prevailing in the country.
By TARISAI MANDIZHA
Appearing before the budget and finance committee to speak on 2017 national budget, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) vice-president, Sifelani Jabangwe said the bond notes announcement had caused widespread panic due to low confidence in them.
“Widespread circulation of the South African rand means that bond notes will not be required to curb illicit flows. While the bond notes make sense as a technical solution, we have completely failed to sell the concept to our members,” he said.
Jabangwe said CZI recommended the use of the rand as the reference currency instead of the United States dollar.
“We suggest that the minister of Finance starts presenting his budget in rand instead of the US dollar. All financial reporting must be done in rand. Business will encourage its members to use rand,” he said.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president, Davison Norupiri said commercial banks should import smaller denominations such as $1, $5 and $10 notes instead of $100 bills, which can be easily siphoned out of the country.
“There is need for reassurance that bond notes will not be forced onto economic agents when they make withdrawals from their banks accounts. The multiple currencies should be allowed to continue unimpeded,” he said.
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Norupiri said policy pronouncements should be made after wide consultations and research policy reversals and delays implementation and causes unnecessary anxiety and erodes confidence.
The central bank is expected to introduce bond notes at the end of this month in smaller denominations. The bond notes will be coming in as a bonus incentive for exporters under a $200 million facility secured from the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank).
Details of the facility are still sketchy, as Afreximbank has not come out with information on how the facility works apart from the information that has been provided by the central bank.
Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa will present his 2017 national budget next month or early December.
