Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube, says the government won’t adopt the United States dollar as the country’s sole currency and will arrest businesspeople rejecting the depreciating local dollar.
According to the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper, Ncube told a parliamentary pre-budget seminar that some of the people rejecting the bond note are pressing for the dumping of the local dollar and adoption of the United States dollar as the sole currency.
Ncube told a parliamentary pre-budget seminar that the country would punish businesses refusing to accept the Zimbabwe dollar.
He is quoted as saying, “… We cannot adopt the United States dollar alone as the official currency. You were there before and there were queues at banks, huge foreign currency deficits and you had deflation. That was because of the US dollar. It is not a good idea, and it will be suicidal to do so.”
Zimbabwe adopted the U.S. dollar a few years ago following the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar due to historic hyperinflation.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government re-introduced the local dollar claiming that the U.S dollar was causing havoc in the money market, resulting in the proliferation of the black market.