The Deputy Minister of Finance and Investment Promotion, David Mnangagwa insists Zimbabwe will continue with the multicurrency system, despite new calls to dollarise as the ZiG weakens.
He made these sentiments while responding to queries during question time in parliament yesterday.
Mnangagwa said the easiest thing for Government to do will be to dollarise, but pointed out that will be the worst thing that the country could do.
Below is his submission:
Indeed, Economics are a very practical subject. I am not an Economics student, but there is no economic theory for multi-currency.
That is the reality Mr. Speaker and if I can highlight the easiest thing for Government to do will be to dollarise but that will be the worst thing that we can do for our country.
It is the easiest thing, but it is the worst thing that we can do – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – What will happen overtime, over years is that Zimbabwe will de-industrialise some of the progress that we will be making as a country, we will see those dividends dissipate.
Our children will have no jobs in the future.
We will become a supermarket of other nations. We will attract the worst elements. These are the effects of dollarisation.
I agree it is the easiest thing to do, but it is the worst thing to do for the country.
What you are seeing is a competition between the ZiG and the USD within our economy on a sliding scale, which we want to reach full de-dollarisation by a certain period. It will not be easy or smooth.
There will be need for restructuring but if we allow a system of parallel market dictates which is led predominantly by speculators, it is the final consumer and the people who will be at a loss in all this.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the problems we face are a cocktail of three groups of people, I would say. You have retailers who are sticklers for the law and will follow whatever policy is there.
You have some who lag behind and then you have a large group who are just greedy. Regardless of how good law as a policy is, they will find ways to arbitrate that and it is easy under the current system that we have, allowing a discount based system will defeat the purpose of our dedollarisation agenda.
I think His Excellency has been very clear, we are on the roadmap to mono-currency. We are on the roadmap to have as a sovereign nation, our own currency.
So, all these measures that are being put into place are meant to protect our local currency.
Again, it will not be perfect, not be smooth, albeit it might have some mistakes, but we learn from those and continue to try and do the right thing. I thank you.
