The Insider

South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba today said special permits for Zimbabweans will be extended by another three years. Permits that expire before 31 December will be extended to the end of the year while those that expire after 31 December will be brought forward to that date. New applications open 1 October. Below is his full statement: 

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Biti says we can even use firewood as currency- Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti, one of those who fought against the return of the Zimbabwe dollar while in office, says the country must ditch the United States dollar and adopt the South African rand instead. Biti said there was no way the country’s economy could recover with the United States dollar as the main currency.  “We can actually use firewood as a medium of exchange, it can work. Money is just an infrastructure of facilitating the base which is production. The challenge is that this economy is collapsing because it is not okay. We are not producing; the capital account is not okay, the current account is in deficit these are the things that you need to fix. These are the structural things that you need to fix.  But the debate on currency is relevant because the US dollar has become overvalued. We don’t have an economy to sustain that. We don’t have the current account to sustain that, which is the export and the imports.  What we need to do is to devalue the US dollar but you can’t do that because you don’t print it. Now there are calls for the return of the Zimdollar and this will be a disaster. We propose that the US dollar should be devalued by bringing in the rand as the official currency and joining the Rand Monetary Union. However the tragedy is that these guys in ZANU-PF cannot afford to meet the requirements of the central bank of South Africa, they just can’t do that,” he said.

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Why Chinamasa is not bringing back the Zimdollar – Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said yesterday the multiple currency system was there to stay in Zimbabwe.

He said the government could not bring back the Zimbabwe dollar because the conditions were not yet right. According to a statement availed on NewZimbabwe.Com Chinamasa said the Zimbabwe dollar would only return when there is: sustainable economic growth; a sustainable current account position; industry competitiveness; sufficient international reserves without which the local currency will be under immense pressure; and restoration of confidence in the banking system and economy.

“Given the current state of the economy where real sector activities remain depressed, industry remains uncompetitive and the balance of payments situation remains acute, it is ill-advised to re-introduce the Zimbabwe dollar. Government is committed to ensuring policy consistency and predictability in order to restore confidence and stimulate economic activity. It is in this spirit that government would want to reiterate that the multi-currency is here to stay,” he said.

The Zimbabwe dollar was phased out in 2009.

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