Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa says the country is being forced to print bond notes, that will be introduced in October, instead of just using real United States dollars because Zimbabwe is like a sieve.
“If we brought in $2 billion today, tomorrow it will have disappeared,” he said. “There are already sharks waiting for it.”
“So, the measure is, apart from trying to support the incentive scheme to exporters, the measure is also to reduce the import bill because we are introducing a priority listing of what commodities can be bought using our foreign currency. We are hoping through the issuance of the bond notes which are relative to the volume of exports, that the leakages of our US$ will come to an end or will be reduced substantially.”
He was responding to a question by Senator Theresa Makone, who wanted to know why Chinamasa was having $200 million worth of bond notes printed instead of just releasing that amount into the market.
“You ask, why we are not just using the $200 million instead of printing $200 million worth of bond notes,” Chinamasa responded. “The short answer is to fight leakages. Bond notes will not be used outside the country. Whereas, the $200 million – if we put it in today, tomorrow it will have disappeared. We are just like a sieve when it comes to our foreign currency which is why we are saying we issue in bond notes because bond notes circulation is limited to the territory of Zimbabwe.”
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