President Emmerson
Mnangagwa, who assumed power in a military coup last November, has
admitted the cash crisis in the country is causing great hardships for
ordinary Zimbabweans.
Addressing
thousands who gathered at the National Sports Stadium in Harare to
commemorate Zimbabwe 38th Independence anniversary, Mnangagwa said the
liquidity crunch was a significant issue which could not be addressed
overnight.
Zimbabwe has been
grappling with a serious cash shortage in the past few years which has
seen citizens sleeping in bank queues in an effort to access their hard
earned cash.
The introduction of
the bond notes, a surrogate currency brought in under the guise of an
export incentive in early 2017, has failed to improve the situation.
The currency, which
was said to be at par with the US Dollar on inception, is now being
exchanged at almost 1:60 to the greenback on the parallel market and has
disappeared from the formal banking system together with the dollar.
But President
Mnangagwa on Wednesday acknowledged the scale of the challenge and
promised government was creating concrete plans to get around the
crisis.
He said his
government which has been on an investment offensive, was putting in
place measures to resolve shortages of cash by mobilizing foreign
finance from regional and international institutions.
"In the same
breath, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, working with the Africa Export
Bank, has put in place a $1.5 billion facility earmarked for both
liquidity support and provision of guarantees for investments into the
country," he said.
The President said
government was also increasing cash and currency importation while
opening up economic engagement and enhancing exports to increase supply
of foreign currency.
"I am optimistic
that these efforts will not only improve our credit rating, but will
unlock fresh capital to finance our development agenda," he said.
The cash crisis has
reached alarming proportions, with local banks now giving out coins to
depositors, in some cases in small five cents denominations.
No comments :
Post a Comment