FILE PHOTO: A Zimbabwean mother goes to collect her monthly rations of food aid in the Rushinga district of Mt Darwin about 254km north of Harare March 7. 2013 (REUTERS / Philimon Bulawayo)
Harare: Zimbabwe’s central bank has printed half of the ‘bond notes’ quasi-currency it intends to issue under a $200m scheme, a state newspaper reported yesterday, as the country grapples with a biting shortage of US dollars.
The notes are intended to be pegged to the US currency but fears have been raised that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) would print more than planned, undermining their value.
Long bank queues have persisted since the bank introduced bond notes last November with the moribund economy desperately short of dollars. RBZ governor John Mangudya told the Herald newspaper that the central bank had so far issued $102m in bond notes, which he said was trading at par with the dollar. But in Harare yesterday, street traders were selling 100 South African rand for $8.50 when buying with bond notes and $8 when using US dollars, suggesting they are not on par.
The central bank can only print $200m in bond notes, which are backed by a bond of the same amount from the African Import and Export Bank.
US dollars, which replaced the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009 as hyper-inflation rendered the currency worthless, are slowly disappearing in the economy while the bond notes have failed to ease cash shortages.
Mangudya said the amount of bond notes, which are in $2 and $5 denominationswas 1.8 percent of the total bank deposits of more than $6bn.
