Economic commentator John Robertson said that it will be difficult for the government to officially dollarize because the money is simply not there.
His comments come as there are calls from different quarters for full dollarisation to be adopted. The bond note has lost value against the US dollar and some businesses are no longer accepting the local currency.
Robertson says that the government is paying its workers using money which is not there. He said:
The money is not there!… The primary base of the state’s taxes is in bond notes. What is merely happening is that real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems are what reflects in workers’ bank accounts on payday, but there is no actual money to back it up. We have a bad reputation out there – even borrowing is out of the picture. It’s a tough road ahead.
Some service stations are now selling fuel in foreign currency. The government also announced last year that car importers will have to fork out duty in foreign currency.
Not that I support ED dispensation, but this here is the truth I’ve been trying to explain to people. We can’t redollarise, we can join Rand Monetary Union, because there is no money to do so! What may work, is pushing for work with the opposition, thus getting the confidence of the other people in the country who voted for it, hoping also that international players who can help us with money can get on board after the efforts of a united, unbiased stand at trying to get things in order in our country.
I know people don’t like hearing about waiting on international players, but if we don’t have the money, where can it come from? If in a house there is shortage of something, it is a duty of the those in charge to either buy more of that thing or borrow. We have run out of money. We can’t buy more of it. No one in our house has it enough to end our crises. So we need to go out and borrow. Totombopeta miswe!
Finally, every situation can be solved by God. Vanhu vazvitadza izvi.