The verdict on the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) is no longer being handed down in finance ministry communiqués or technical seminars.
It is being delivered at the fuel pump, at the bank counter, in the school fees queue, and in the silence of a central bank facility that the country’s own lenders refuse to draw down.
Two reports published this week by Alpha Media Holdings titles — one in NewsDay, the other in The Zimbabwe Independent — laid bare a market that is, in the most unmistakable language a market that has been voting against its own currency.
NewsDay’s survey across the capital found that several fuel service stations were refusing to accept the ZiG, with most retailers transacting strictly in United States dollars despite Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) calls for dual pricing.
One attendant told the paper: “We have not yet started selling fuel in ZiG.”
Industry players cite a structural mismatch.
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce have warned that fuel dealers import product in US$, but would receive ZiG if forced to sell in local currency, creating a mismatch that threatens viability, exacerbated by chronic delays at the official auction.
An RBZ official, speaking anonymously, admitted to NewsDay that without acceptance at fuel stations, the ZiG risks becoming a “token currency” confined to petty retail.
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Meanwhile, in The Zimbabwe Independent, Shame Makoshori reported that of a ZiG1.2 billion Targeted Finance Facility (TFF) the RBZ established over a year ago to bolster the productive sector, only ZiG56.9 million had been drawn down by April 15, 2026, leaving the bulk of the facility idle.
RBZ governor John Mushayavanhu called the uptake “disappointing.”
Senior bankers told the paper the issue was not access; it is pricing.
The TFF is priced at around 30%, meaning lending at 35–40% after margins — rates only speculators can sustain in a low-inflation environment.
When fuel dealers won’t pump it, banks won’t borrow it, schools won’t bank it, and Zimbabweans queue at the parallel market for it, the question is not whether the market trusts the ZiG. The market has already answered.
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) flagged the consumer experience early, saying the ZiG had brought more difficulty than the currency it replaced.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has been blunter still. Its secretary-general Tirivanhu Marimo, reacting to Treasury’s celebration of single-digit inflation said “The ZIG fails the basic credibility test”, noting that the economy is roughly 84% informal and overwhelmingly dollarised.
Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2025 Article IV report observed that ZiG’s share of monetary aggregates is around 17%, prices are rarely quoted in ZiG, and salaries and goods are typically paid wholly or partially in US dollars.
CCZ’s own December report found that more than 90% of transactions still occur in US dollars, with businesses viewing current ZiG stability as artificial and unsustainable.
The Bretton Woods institutions are diplomatic, but their conclusions are damning.
In its October 2025 Article IV, the IMF found that “the RBZ has remained a dominant seller in the WBWS market”, stabilising the rate within a narrow band through interventions financed by surrender requirements raised to 30% in February 2025.
The fund concluded the apparent stability masks an overvaluation; gross international reserves remain low at US$683 million by late May 2025, covering less than one month of imports.
Both the official and parallel rates fail to respond to demand pressure when the RBZ is absent, the Fund noted, because agents simply wait for the next intervention.
The World Bank’s growth projection for 2026 (around 5%) sits between government optimism and IMF caution, with explicit concerns about institutional capacity and policy consistency.
Both institutions agree Zimbabwe’s debt remains in distress and ZiG monetisation remains low.
Officialdom is bullish. In January, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube announced single-digit annual inflation of 4,1% — “a historic moment for Zimbabwe”, the first such reading since 1997.
February came in at 3,85%. Treasury says reserves backing the ZiG climbed from US$276 million at launch to US$1,2 billion by December 2025.
Mushayavanhu, defending the new policy that compels public-sector contractors to be paid exclusively in ZiG, has assured suppliers that single-digit inflation shows inflation and exchange rate expectations have been anchored.
The trouble is that the market is reading the same data and reaching the opposite conclusion.
Behind the headline numbers sits a scaffolding of administrative measures that, taken together, constitute artificial support.
First, surrender requirements. Exporters must hand over 30% of foreign currency earnings to the RBZ, which the central bank then deploys into the (willing buyer willing seller) WBWS market to defend the rate.
The IMF has recommended phasing this out and redirecting flows to authorised dealers; Treasury has resisted.
Second, delayed settlements. Mining sector reporting and Equity Axis analysis indicate government arrears to contractors and suppliers have risen to industry estimates of around US$1.5 billion, while exporters face delays in ZiG settlements — by withholding local liquidity, authorities suppress forex demand and prop up the rate at the cost of corporate cash flow.
Third, coercion. Government has decreed that all local suppliers and contractors be paid exclusively in ZiG under the National Standard Price List.
The ZCTU has accused Treasury of manipulating the inflation basket to suppress wage demands.
Schools, fuel stations and passport offices are pressured to accept ZiG even as the State itself charges USD for many of its own services.
NewsDay’s editorial on Saturday made the inconsistency explicit, arguing that if ZiG is to work, the adoption must begin with government services — passports, licences and user fees — rather than be imposed selectively on private business.
Fourth, an interest-rate sledgehammer. A 35% policy rate sustained as inflation has fallen below 5% has produced punishing real rates that suffocate credit.
The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has warned that the combination of high real rates, an idle TFF and structural dollarisation has rendered the ZiG marginal in everyday use, largely confined to petty transactions, while the US dollar continues to dominate all commercial activity.
A currency is, in the end, a social contract. You cannot decree it. You cannot police it into being. You earn it. Zimbabweans have been here before — this is the country’s sixth attempt at a sovereign medium of exchange since 2009 — and each time the arc has been the same: a new currency, a triumphant launch, a season of forced acceptance, erosion, collapse.
The pump revolt and the bankers’ boycott are not isolated incidents.
They are the same data point: the people who would have to use the ZiG to make it real are choosing, with their feet and their balance sheets, not to.
Until the State adopts the discipline it preaches — paying contractors on time, accepting its own currency for its own services, allowing the exchange rate to find its level, and respecting the autonomy of a sound financial sector — the headline 4% inflation will remain what the IMF politely calls it: anchored stability that the market does not believe.
The question now is not whether the ZiG will fail. It is whether those in charge will admit, before the next devaluation, what every fuel attendant in Harare already knows.
