This comes as the Treasury chief and the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) last year introduced a number of measures, including limiting
the amount people could transact on daily basis on mobile money transfer
platforms and introducing a foreign currency auction system.
These resulted in the Zimbabwe dollar stabilising against
the greenback, while prices of basic commodities have also remained reasonably
stable .
Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Ncube said once the
authorities increase the amount of cash people can withdraw from the bank,
there was a danger the notes would be channelled towards the parallel market.
“The issue about regulating access to cash was triggered by
the abuse that we had seen taking place from the use of the mobile banking
platform in terms of electronic money.
“We realise that it is necessary to restrict the cash
withdrawals, the amounts that can be used at any point in time and be
transferred at any point in time.
“This is necessary for us to keep those restrictions in
place as a general policy. If we loosen
up on that, it will cause us a lot of difficulties and basically, we will go
back to where we were before, where individuals will access larger amounts of
cash and then want to trade in the parallel market and just make our currency
more unstable,” Ncube said.
He said the government is concentrating on making sure that
the country’s currency remains stable.
Local currency is trading at about $84 to the US$. “I think
you will agree with me that at the moment, the most valuable thing from a
micro-economic sense is stability of our currency which is spreading stability
and creditability everywhere and that is a fact we must all work to protect,”
Ncube said.
This comes after RBZ governor John Mangudya recently said
the central bank would soon be introducing a $50 note to augment the current
stock of bank notes in circulation.
He said the central bank’s focus on fostering price and
financial system stability in the economy requires team effort by all
Zimbabweans to enhance self-discipline and compliance, and to cherish economic
progress.
“The Bank’s Exchange Control Inspectorate and the Financial
Intelligence Unit (FIU) have enhanced their monitoring and surveillance on the
utilisation of foreign exchange in the market to foster market discipline.
“Banks and mobile banking institutions are obliged to
ensure that the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD)
principles are complied with at all the times,” Mangudya said.
The central bank chief said enhancing the FIU would ensure
that authorised dealers or banks and foreign exchange auction system
participants comply with auction rules and regulations to curb abuse of the
foreign exchange auction and safeguard the auction from “being abused as a
breeding ground for arbitrage opportunities”.
Daily News
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