“Two years ago, President Mnangagwa told me as the Minister
of Finance that we should set aside 50 percent of the royalties that we are
earning from the mining sector and that it should be paid in physically. So, if
it is gold, half of the royalties were now supposed to be actually paid in
physical gold. If it is lithium, we receive the US dollar equivalent in terms
of royalty and half of that is then paid to Treasury for usage in terms of
Government programmes, but half is then set aside as royalties and it buys gold
and beefs up the gold reserve.
“So, we have been on this programme for the last two years
and on 5 April this year, we were then able to have the capacity to introduce
the new domestic currency, the ZiG, which is backed by the assets, the reserves
that are in the vaults of the Central Bank,” Prof Ncube told a Zanu-PF Provincial Co-ordinating
Committee meeting in Bulawayo yesterday.
0 comments:
Post a Comment