Demonetisation clarified

Published: 07 June 2015
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's $20 million demonetisation programme is aimed at "liquidating all Zimbabwe dollar balances" as at December 2008 and "not compensating speculators' inflationary gains".

This comes amid rumblings about whether the minimum $5 payments - for the total Z$220 billion (revalued) balances - were not a "mockery" to legitimate account holders who lost their savings when the worthless currency was scrapped in January 2009.

"The Zimbabwe dollar will be demonetised through dividing the bank balances as at December 2008 by the then United Nations exchange rate of Z$35 000 (revalued) to the American dollar…," Central Bank governor John Mangudya said on the sidelines of an African Development Bank meeting recently.

"This process is a great improvement from the previously envisaged $6 million (programme)... because even those who were going to get nothing after dividing their bank balances (with the agreed exchange rate) are getting something," he said.

While some people have been itching to "cash in on their hefty Zimbabwe dollar" balances - obviously helped by the diabolic inflation figures of the pre-dollarisation era - the current compensation plan has been described as "fair" to the generality of the masses and those who would not have even salvaged a penny after using the applicable method to arrive at the compensation figures.
- dailynews

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