Unease as Zimbabwe rolls out ‘surrogate’ dollars
The country’s economic decline has recently worsened with banks running short of cash and depositors sleeping outside branches to be sure of accessing their money
Harare — Zimbabwe on Monday started issuing "bond notes", its own currency equivalent to the US dollar, in a bid to ease critical cash shortages, but the move sparked fears of a return to hyperinflation. The crisis-hit southern African country has used multiple foreign currencies, including the greenback, since 2009, after a rate of inflation that peaked at 500-billion percent rendered the Zimbabwe dollar unusable. The introduction of $2 and $5 bond notes into circulation follows the issuing of bond coins over a year ago to ease shortages of change in smaller denominations. The country has experienced a severe shortage of US dollar banknotes in recent months which prompted President Robert Mugabe’s government to print what locals have dubbed "surrogate money". "The government is only treating the symptoms without attending to the problems and it’s not going to solve anything," Antony Hawkins, an economist at the University of Zimbabwe’s Business School, told AFP. "The problem is we ...
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