Govt steps up efforts to end multiple currencies system
PHILLIMON MHLANGA
Government will end its multi-currency system and return to using its local currency as the sole form of legal tender, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said
He said this at the CEO Africa Roundtable, which is currently taking place in the resort town of Victoria Falls.
Government-gazetted Statutory Instrument (SI) 118A of 2022 which allows foreign currencies like the US dollar and South African rand to continue to exist until December 2025. These initiatives are in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), the government’s five-year economic plan that runs from 2021 to 2025.
President Mnangagwa said: “In 2009, our domestic currency collapsed, and a committee was formed, which I chaired, to address the currency issue. To survive, we created a basket of currencies and let our currency phase out. While it may have been a challenging decision, it saved our economy at the time. We went in that situation for a long time.”
He added: “So, we decided to introduce our own currency but still our currency continues to be fought. However, we have to go through this cycle where as a country we must have a currency which we call our own. We must bite the bullet, whether it gives us some suffering for a period, we shall proceed to have our own currency, not a situation where the economy has a regime of currencies in use, we want a single currency and we are going there.”
Without own currency, President Mnangagwa said the nation cannot experience growth. He supported the use of a single, local currency and acknowledged that the existence of multiple currencies in the economy is unsustainable.
The Treasury recently reassured the market of its commitment to bolstering the value of the local currency, restoring consumer purchasing power and assisting with economic recovery efforts. The government is steadfast in promoting the use of the local currency, pointing to its beneficial effects on the national economy.
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