Government’s continued insistence that its surrogate bond note currency and real time gross settlement (RTGS) bank balances have the same value with the United States dollar is unfathomable.
Editorial Comment
It boggles the mind why President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s regime is ordering businesses not to sell their products in the US$ when it is the only viable solution to the current currency crisis.
We believe the government’s position is a reflection of policy confusion and inconsistence that will make it virtually impossible to fix the current economic mess.
Just recently, government threatened to cancel licences of businesses charging for goods and services in US$, yet the American currency is part of the basket of currencies considered legal tender in the country.
The legal use of foreign currency was sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in February 2009 after the local currency had literally become untenable before disappearing from the market altogether.
Clearly, the government has virtually defrauded nearly all citizens by rendering the money in their bank accounts and elsewhere useless, when it should have equal value with the US$.
Officially, every person who is working in the country is earning US$ or their equivalent, but for all intents and purposes, the money that ends up in their accounts is way less than its value in US$.
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It is strange that the very same government that insists the US$ is equivalent in value to the bond would urge banks to open separate accounts for US$ and those for RTGS.
The very same government demands that duty for imported vehicles be paid in US$. Who are they fooling? This is virtually an admission that these currencies are not equal in value.
Instead of threatening businesses pegging prices in US$, government would be better off finding real solutions to the economic crisis bedevilling the country. Such tactics do not attract investors and will only push the country deeper and deeper into an economic quagmire.
The currency crisis is a key component of the whole economic matrix and without resolving it, we will remain stuck in the same place as those with US$ will continue trading them on the black market rather than go by the 1:1 lie.
