PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa says his government will reintroduce the long discarded Zimbabwean dollar before the end of the year.
“It is impossible for a country to develop when it does not have its own currency…” Mnangagwa said Friday.
He added, “As a country, we should have our own currency and plans are already under way to rectify that.
“This culture of relying on the US dollar whose value changes every day is not sustainable as it has the effect of raising prices every day and this is caused by that we do not have our own currency.
“We have to use our own currency.”
Zimbabwe dumped its own currency in 2009 after it had been rendered worthless by a decade of hyperinflation, and adopted use of multiple currencies.
Mnangagwa said the multi-currency regime had been adopted to deal with the hyper-inflation experienced between 2008 and 2009 but should not be maintained going into the future.
“Between 2008 and 2009 our country’s currency lost value and some people became billionaires or trillionaires due to high inflation,” the president said.
“At the time, government decided to adopt the multi-currency regime where we started using, the U.S. dollar, South African Rand, the British Pound and Botswana Pula for transacting. It was a policy measure to address the challenges that were being faced then. We, however, cannot continue going forward without our own currency.”
He added that the country would not develop if it continues to use other nations’ currencies.
“A currency is only printed by its owners and the only way to get (foreign currency) is through exports, Diaspora remittances or foreign investments but as a country we should have our own currency and we have embarked on that journey,” he said.
He added that when the local currency is re-introduced, it would no longer be possible to use foreign currency while transacting locally.
Mnangagwa’s pronouncements come barely two months after Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube denied international media reports he had claimed the Zim-dollar shall be reintroduced.
