Zim dollar ‘will be back’

Harare – Zimbabwe’s newly sworn-in finance minister yesterday said he planned to reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar and accelerate plans to repay the country’s debt in a bid to revive the battered economy.

The nation abandoned its currency after it spiralled out of control between 2008 and 2009 during the rule of Robert Mugabe.

It adopted the US dollar and other foreign currencies, including the rand, before introducing “bond notes”. But the bond notes are worth far less than the US dollar.

“Ultimately, I want to see the Zimbabwe dollar come back, the sovereign currency,” the new minister, Mthuli Ncube, said.

Ncube, 55, is a former vice-president of the African Development Bank. – Reuters