Gono last week proposed the idea of Zimbabwe reverting to its own currency alongside other currencies in its economic development prospects. “We cannot depend on the fortunes and misfortunes of a currency we cannot control,” Gono recently told a business conference.
He said Zimbabwe cannot control the exogenous inflationary pressures created by the United States dollar. But a snap survey by The Standard around the streets of Harare yesterday revealed that most people were not interested in even hearing about the return of the local currency.
They said talking about the re-introduction of the local currency was being insensitive to people who experienced hardship at the height of the economy’s freefall in 2008.
“It’s too early to re-introduce the Zimbabwe dollar. Look, our own industry is not functioning,” said a young man who identified himself as Fatso Mandizvidza. “We are relying on imports there isn’t anything that we are producing ourselves, so in a short space of time that Zim dollar will return our country to the catastrophic state of affairs that prevailed in 2008.”
Another Harare man, Shepherd Nyandoro said the country’s economy needed more time to recover and perform to levels that prevailed in the 1990s. “I don’t think the economy’s performance has peaked sufficiently for us to introduce the Zim dollar. We just need more time to revive our industrial sector,” said Nyandoro.
Economist Eric Bloch said the decision by Finance minister Tendai Biti to shelve the re-introduction of the Zimbabwe dollar was commendable as this would provide the economy adequate time to recover.
“That (introducing Zim dollar) would be a complete disaster because nobody would want to use a currency that is not backed by reserves,” said Bloch. “We shouldn’t consider re-introducing it until the economy completely recovers, perhaps the earliest date would be in 2014 when the economy would have hopefully shown strong signs of recovery.”
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‘Zim dollar out of question’
A young woman who identified himself as Morris Moyo said: “I think the value of a country’s currency is determined by the state of its economy. Our economy is not functioning and performing properly, so it’s not logical to bring in our own currency.”
A middle-aged woman, who requested anonymity, welcomed the idea and said perhaps the financial difficulties most families are experiencing, would be relieved.
“If the Zim dollar comes back perhaps the situation may improve,” she said. “The dollar that we are using does not belong to our country, right now the US dollar is causing us problems as prices of basic products are going up, yet the dollar is very hard to come by.”
A savvy businesswoman named Betty, who operates along Harare Street, said such a move would bring untold misery on people. “Introducing the Zim dollar is just out of the question. Look, right now people can plan their business properly; in fact many people are comfortable with the United States dollar. “We can’t afford to go back to the suffering of 2008 where people had to struggle to get money that couldn’t even buy anything,” said Betty.
When inflation was 231 million percent
Before the inception of the multiple currency regime in 2009, long queues at banks were the order of the day throughout the country as people patiently waited to access defunct Zimbabwe dollar notes.
So dire was the situation that upon accessing bundles of trillion dollar notes from the bank, one found it difficult to even buy a loaf of bread as the currency’s value depreciated by the minute.
At one time inflation topped 231 million percent. Economists blamed the RBZ, at the behest of Gono, for fuelling world-record inflation as the central bank continually printed the useless notes which even shop owners refused to accept as payment. Zimbabwe had literally come to a standstill when some soldiers began running amok looting shops in Harare before government adopted the use of foreign currency.
