Chinamasa says Zimbabwe will not be a “fishing pond” for US dollars

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa today said the introduction of bond notes will stop the country from being a fishing pond for the United States dollar.

He told a United States based news agency that a lot of companies and so-called investors were coming to the country to fish out US dollars and were thus creating the cash shortage that has gripped the country.

 “We believe the introduction of the bond notes will help stop the country from being a fishing pond for the U.S. dollar,” Chinamasa said at the African Development Bank’s annual meetings in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka. “A lot of companies, so-called investors, come to fish out our U.S. dollar resources and that is what is producing the shortage.”

Zimbabwe abandoned its local currency in 2009 to curb hyperinflation and is currently using nine currencies though the United States dollar now dominates.

Central Bank governor John Mangudya has announced that the country will soon be introducing bond notes, which will have a US dollar equivalent. He did not give a date but said the notes would be printed by a German company.

There has been an outcry that President Robert Mugabe’s cash strapped government is trying to reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar through the back door.

Zimbabwe lost $1.8 billion through illicit flows last year. It introduced new measures which resulted in the country losing about $50 million in the first quarter of this year- an amount it lost every month last year.

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