Pres Mnangagwa Again Says New Currency In Months, Reason: We Want To Be Like Others

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is in Maputo, Mozambique attending the US-Africa Business Summit. He spoke to Bloomberg on the sidelines of the summit.

In that interview, the president again talked about introducing a new currency in Zimbabwe within months. He said:

It is necessary that we have our own currency. I have faith that we’ll achieve that even before the end of the year or by the first quarter of next year.

The reason

Sometimes President Mnangagwa innocently says things that make people question whether he appreciates important issues. Here’s a quote from The Herald:

I am not aware of any country which has no currency of its own, but that is not my field – I am a lawyer – but I am told that except for Zimbabwe I haven’t been told of another country which doesn’t have its own currency. Even poor countries have currencies from what I hear, so we intend to introduce our own

This is a disappointing motivation for the head of state to give for something so significant.

Faith in Mthuli Ncube

President Mnangagwa’s strategy for the economy seems to be: trust Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube:

I’ve been in government for 38 years as minister and I can’t remember when you ever had a budget surplus. Now, this young man has been able to achieve a budget surplus in less than eight months. So it tells me that what he tells me is possibly true on these issues.

Nothing wrong with that trust actually. He appointed him so it’s important that he trusts him and give him room to work. The hope though is that the president has delegated authority to his minister and not abdicated responsibility for the economy altogether. Well the only other ‘concerning thing’ is that he calls a 56 year old man a young man.

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