via allAfrica.com: Zimbabweans Say No to Bonded Coins 13 December 2014
MOST people have criticised the government decision to introduce bonded coins saying the move could be a way of trying to bring back the Zimbabwean dollar through the back door.
The MDC-N led the criticisms saying the people have neither ‘confidence’ in the Zanu PF government policies nor “faith” in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
A statement from the party said the move by the RBZ was “short term and appears to come a little bit late” because “a survey within the retail sector will show that there had been a major improvement in coins especially rands.”
“The decision in our view is trying to fix a problem that the people of this country had fixed on their own since this country has been for a long time and continues to operate on an autopilot basis,” the statement said.
The party said the people’s fears were “not misplaced as ordinary people and organisations lost millions of US dollars through the abuse of the central bank by the Zanu PF regime.” As such, the party said, there was no guarantee that the RBZ has the capacity to say no to a clueless Zanu PF government if it is ordered to produce more coins and even raid people’s accounts.”
Some people who spoke to NewZimbabwe.com said when John Mangudya the RBZ governor announced the coming of bonded coins last week they were reminded the Zimbabwean dollar which was discarded in 2008 at the height of the record breaking inflation.
Mangudya announced that Zimbabwe will receive $10 million worth of bond coins which will translate to 2% of total banking deposit. He said the coins, which will be issued in 1c, 5c, 10c, 25 and 50c, will not be Zimbabwean coins but some people fear that was a way to allay fears as government begins an exercise through which to test if it can with time reintroduce the discarded currency.
The fear of the return of the Zimbabwean dollar stems from the fact during the campaign period for the 2013 harmonised elections President Mugabe promised his supporters that once in power his party was going to reintroduced it.
At the time, Mugabe claimed that ordinary people were suffering because of the multicurrency regime. But this week people said they were going to reject the coins and prefer to take sweets instead of accepting the coins as change from the stores.
One supermarket manager in Harare said retailers were going to find it difficult to convince people to accept the coins.
The manager said: “The government should have just let the currency situation continue like that because like us, most shops now have coins to give customers as change, gone are the days of giving them sweets or maputi and ball point pens as change,” he said.
COMMENTS
It really is a medieval dark age dump of a country isn’t it?? I mean lets be honest this is the technological space age mankind has never been so far advanced and the rest of the world snowballs out of control in amazing progression and good old Zimbabalooba still hands out “Sweets , Maputi and ball point pens for change” please people wake up to the reality it is such a failed state it’s beyond comprehension.
This is just an insult, so just replace the Zim dollar with coins with no value at all. What a joke:
– Merchants will be loaded with coins that they can not use to re-order products.
– you end up accumulating coins from change on purchase and the business man tells u they have too many coins already they want cash , u lose again
-Next step they make $2, $5 and $10 coins to simplify the matter
– Every bank withdrawal will be given out in coins
-LAST STEP Alaaaaas all your savings in your bank account has been converted to coin currency at whatever rate and all is wiped out. We have seen this before so this nonsense must stop.
– I was considering investing in Zim but for now KISS my foot. I am keep my hard won dollars here in diaspora and for my relatives I advise them to get multi layer matteresses.
They must running out of cash those fools.Seriously do they honestly believe that Zimbos are so gullible .They are so far up their own back sides that i almost feel embarassed to be identified with this country at times.
Bury them melt them take them out of circulation as quickly as possible. Refuse to accept them. Your money is yours it does not belong to Govt. RBZ must sort out its own affairs – like selling its horrible building and sports clubs (if it can find a buyer). This is the price of kleptocracy. RBZ – Do not try to steal our money again. You have not accounted for all the money you took prior to dollarisation; your bank should actually be declared insolvent and put out of its misery. Owes billions. Cars, houses, gold mines, sports clubs while we had no water – because there was no forex to pay for chemicals! Pigs. Get lost; raise your own money by your own labour. No investment while this sort of nonsense continues. See the Shuttleworth case in SA and some of the comments.
Even if we refuse to use them (in continued preference for Rand), or buried all these coins as soon as they are in circulation, don’t the banks have to “pay” the RBZ in real money for whatever amount of coins they are issued with? Sounds to me like RBZ – 1, Commercial Banks – 0. Vatanga futi vanhu vaya.
Just di it