via RBZ floats $50m bond for special coins – DailyNews Live 8 September 2014
HARARE – The new regime of special coins indexed at par with the United States coins that will be installed by December will be bankrolled by a $50 million bond facility, the Central Bank governor has said.
The special coins are meant to ease change shortages.
The coins, which are being imported, will be introduced as a medium of exchange and are aimed at augmenting currencies in circulation.
The measure, announced in the Central Bank’s monetary policy statement released two weeks ago, comes as Zimbabwe is battling a liquidity crisis and small change challenges.
The government in 2009 abandoned use of the Zimbabwe dollar and adopted a basket of foreign currencies after the local currency was devastated by hyperinflation that topped 500 billion percent.
RBZ governor John Mangudya said during a meeting last Thursday organised by the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust that the government had looked into importing US coins in the past, but did not follow through on the plan because freight charges were higher than their value.
The Bank has chose instead to import “special coins” with similar denominations and values.
“We had to arrange a $50 million bond facility which is a United States dollar bond for coins,” Mangudya said.
He said the coin shortage has made the pricing of products difficult, as goods have had to be rounded off to the nearest dollar.
In an interview with the Daily News last week, Mangudya said they were expecting to introduce the special coins before the end of December 2014.
“Indeed, they would be convertible just like the notes,” Mangudya said.
He said “it stood to reason that we need the special coins to be the divisibility units of the USD notes, as such, the special coins would need to be at par with the US cents.”
“Divisibility is one of the most important characteristic of money. The rand coins are also being imported to augment the available stocks within the economy,” said the central bank boss said.
He was tight-lipped on the features of the coins, source and name.
“I cannot tell you the source of the coins,” he said.
“I need to protect the integrity of this market. The RBZ will only share the information on cost once we receive the final invoice from the suppliers, whom we expect to meet next month.”
RBZ has been in negotiations with banks and the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe on the details of importing the coins and whether to sell them. Mangudya said that the coins would be distributed through normal banking channels from the Reserve Bank and that its Bank Use Promotion Unit would monitor them. At the announcement, Mangudya did not give the terms of the bond or where the coins would be imported from.
COMMENTS
Oh yay, oh yay! MAJIC COINS NOW….
Seems to me the bankers are smoking the same stuff they smoke in the politburo , must be good stuff.
Umm well they are introducing Zim Coins to pegged to the maximum of USD50 million, as long as they do not mint their own then at any one time there should be the equivalence of USDZ50 million (USZim$) in circulation denominated in cents. The problem is when people start not to pass these but hoard them then in reality they should gain value but based on my understanding they won’t as they will be indexed or pegged at 1:1 cents. Indirectly creating USc and inflating the Zim value
They think they have found a way to mint US$ using other people to fund the fraud. People remember it is you pension funds that will be funding this cute bit of larceny and you will never be repaid.
Zvakasiyana chi nekungogadzira zim dollar?…madofo aya…now they want to print ma US dollars nematricks…where did these people go to school….?
Give me suckers, credit notes, pens. Keep your coins governor. Divisibility? Use SA coins pse – freight weight not a problem.
Better idea – bring back all the money the connected people have externalised and continue externalising
surely the Americans cannot be so stooopid (or can they?)this is another Zanu lie it will never happen , who gave them 50mill anyway-or is it on loan from the ministerial thieves .
This suspect activity is bound to fail and be a joke for years to come. Remings me of the old milk tokens
Someone is going to make a mint at the MINT!
lets see how stoooopid zimbos are if they accept just 1 of these coins.Most educated african population!!!mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I interested in knowing who would be stupid enough to invest in RBZ bonds funding the purchase of money?
They can take my goats and pigs and pegg them to US$ as well. Chidya would be 15 dollars, musoro 10 dollar etc. Good money must be divisible nee. My goat is. Lol
I bet that these ‘coins’
were a off-shoot of the
Mugarbage begging-bowl
junket to Zing-Zongland!
The 1:1 ‘coins’ will be
minted by Nikuv or the IOC
partner – the MSS!
Get ready for the $50 million
Ching-Chong coin-heist Zimbabwe!
Some fool has to take up the bonds. So if they print 50 mil that means that you’re going to have to take a worthless coin who in their right mind would want to do that. This is a steal of 50 mil by the govt. what don’t they fail to understand -it looks like pretty much everything except looting fraud and stealing. What a nation.
Will they be plastic like the DBM milk tokens we used to use?