Business Reporter
Zimbabwe’s currency, the Zimbabwe Gold, has stabilised over the past six months but people are preferring to use the United States dollar because they have no confidence in the local currency but it is here to stay.
Responding to questions in Parliament yesterday, Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, who is Leader of Government Business in Parliament, said that there was no reason at all not to have trust in the local currency because the government had put money on the market for those who need it for imports but industry and business could not buy all the money on the market.
“What is happening is that the problem is, our people have lack of confidence in our local currency,” Ziyambi said.
“People believe that as soon as they get the local currency, they panic and want to use it immediately thinking that something might happen. That way, we feel that it is very expensive but what is happening now is, we have seen some big companies that are actually going to the Reserve Bank saying we have US dollars in exchange of ZiG.
“What we want to encourage the people is that let us not use or spend all our monies from the bank in terms of money or gold; if we want to buy the ZiG, it is not more than 23. The 23 and 33, that is what we are saying is the panic rate amongst people who think something might happen.
“Nothing is going to happen this time around, that is what we are saying. That is the panic rate amongst people who think something might happen but nothing is going to happen this time around.”
The ZiG was trading at 26.70 on the interbank market yesterday and ranged from 35 to 38 on the black market.
Asked what measures the government was taking to make sure that people do not panic, Ziyambi said that the only thing that Zimbabweans can do is to change their mindset and believe that their money works.
“What is important is, let us not have a view that our money does not work, nothing else is needed,” he said.
