PEOPLE’s Democratic Party leader, Tendai Biti yesterday
called on the government to immediately demonetise bond notes and increase the
use of plastic money, as a temporary measure to deal with the liquidity crunch
and multiple-exchange rates now prevalent on the market.
Biti made the comments while giving his party’s state of
the economy address in Harare.
“It is our respectful contention that the government must
immediately demonetise the bond note. We contend that the myth of RTGS and use
of plastic money can be adequate to resolve the challenges of cash as a medium
of exchange within the four corners of Zimbabwe,” he said.
Biti said the government should quickly move in to
ring-fence all United States dollar-denominated account balances to hedge
against wiping away depositors’ savings like what happened in the 2007-8
hyperinflationary era.
“We demand that all current balances in the people’s bank accounts,
which are indexed in US dollars and not bond notes, must be ring-fenced
immediately, to protect the same against the vagaries of the returning high
inflation and multiple exchange rates,” he said.
The former Finance minister also called on the government
to do a forensic audit of the State’s debts since 2013, when his successor,
Patrick Chinamasa increased government debts through the issuance of Treasury
Bills.
“Such audit should also ensure that all debt that was
contracted, including and in particular the debt acquired from Afrexim Bank,
complied with Zimbabwean law and in particular approved by Parliament.” Newsday
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