By Stephen Chandisareva
HARARE – The government says it will supplement apex bank reserves with an additional US$300 million meant to stabilize the recently introduced currency, Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG).
But public reaction to the latest currency revelations on April 5, 2024 has been slow.
The quick spikes in inflation, the thriving black market, and the predilection of the people, including the government, to conduct much of their business in US dollars have all been challenges for the Zim dollar, which has been replaced by ZiG.
“Over and above the US$285 million that is sitting at the central bank, the government also has some reserves of around US$300 million that we call on if the US$285 million is fully utilised,” Guvamatanga said.
Guvamatanga stressed that, going forward, there is no longer a need to have separate reserves.
“Obviously, now that we have a stable currency and we are moving with our de-dollarisation plan, they are planning to consolidate that reserve into one.
“We are actually now going to look at whether we can consolidate what is sitting in government and what is sitting at the central bank into one single reserve at the central bank,” he said.
Zimbabweans have a historic distrust of the central bank. It had been printing ZWL10 trillion of notes since 2008, while inflation was out of control.
The southern African nation then abolished its own currency and for many years used only foreign banknotes such as the US dollar and the South African rand.