Zimbabwe’s central bank says it is about to “drip-feed” another seven million US worth of bond notes into circulation – just as the finance minister readies for a difficult budget.
Said an RBZ statement on Wednesday: “The bank would like to advise the public that it is releasing the second batch of $2 bond notes amounting to $7m this week.”
Ten million US worth of bond notes – a surrogate currency that Zimbabweans are extremely sceptical of – were put into circulation last Monday.
So too were two million US worth of new bond coins. But these are not part of the central bank’s running tally of bond money, since the bank said that the new total of bond notes in circulation would now be 17 million US.
Injections of bond notes will have to speed up during December if the bank is to release the full 75 million US it has promised to before Christmas.
Zimbabwe’s state Herald newspaper claimed in an editorial on Wednesday that the country now had “the strongest currency in Africa” in which Zimbabweans had “full confidence”. Last time Zimbabwe printed money called bearer cheques starting in 2003, hyperinflation and shortages ensued and many lost their savings.
The bank thanked Zimbabweans for “embracing” the notes.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa will deliver his 2017 budget on Thursday afternoon in the face of what most see as gloomy economic prospects.
