THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is confident that the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) currency has stabilised and insists that a mono-currency regime is achievable in the long run.
Since its debut in April 2024, the ZiG has avoided the spectacular collapse that defined previous domestic currencies. By recent historical standards, that alone is notable.
The numbers tell part of the story. Authorities point to month-on-month inflation averaging 0,3%, annual inflation falling to 4,1% and foreign currency reserves rising to about US$1,2 billion.
The premium on the parallel market has narrowed to around 20%, from between 80% and 100%.
On paper, these are measurable gains, underpinned by tighter monetary policy and improved fiscal discipline.
Buoyed by this stability, RBZ has gone as far as declaring that it is now safer to save in ZiG than in the US dollar.
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Policymakers have even been emboldened to suggest that Zimbabwe could eventually migrate to exclusive use of the domestic currency after 2030.
Yet despite 21 months of relative calm, a stubborn reality remains: ZiG is a part-time currency.
Central bank data show that ZiG accounts for only about 40% of transactions on the national payment system, with the US dollar retaining a firm grip on economic life.
That statistic alone underscores how far the ZiG still is from becoming the currency of choice.
For the ZiG to displace the US dollar, it must earn the trust of households, businesses and the rapidly expanding informal sector — where it is often used merely as change.
Trust, however, is not built through declarations. It is accumulated slowly, consistently and painfully over time.
Zimbabweans have endured repeated currency collapses. Erasing that memory requires more than technical stability; it requires an abundance of credibility.
Over the years, the US dollar has emerged as the default currency not out of sentimentality, but necessity.
It survived the world-beating hyperinflation of 2007–2008 and preserved purchasing power when domestic policy failed.
In moments of uncertainty, it became both a store of value and a medium of exchange.
In the court of public opinion, the verdict is unambiguous. The US dollar is the currency Zimbabweans instinctively turn to when confidence wavers. It has weathered every policy misstep and inflationary surge.
For citizens and businesses alike, it is tried, tested, predictable — and trusted.
That trust was forged through painful lessons.
Zimbabweans were once told that the bond note was at par with the US dollar.
Many accepted that promise, only to discover too late that it was illusory.
Value eroded swiftly and without mercy.
Then came Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019, which abruptly declared the Zimbabwe dollar the sole legal tender.
Overnight, savings were destroyed, contracts distorted and confidence extinguished.
Those experiences left deep scars.
The public, unlike the Bourbons, has neither forgotten nor learnt nothing.
Once bitten, twice shy. People remember how quickly value vanished, how rules shifted without warning and how assurances were reversed when expedient.
Against this backdrop, appeals to trust the ZiG — however sincere — face a credibility deficit that cannot be wished away.
The ZiG may remain stable in the short to medium term and that would be a welcome and important achievement.
But trust, once repeatedly broken, is slow to rebuild. Until policy consistency is demonstrated over time — across political cycles, fiscal pressures and external shocks — the US dollar will remain Zimbabwe’s currency of trust.
Ultimately, authorities must recognise that trust is the real currency. Without it, no mono-currency ambition can succeed.