HARARE – Zimbabwe’s monetary authorities and the finance minister bristle at any attacks on the country’s transitional RTGS dollar currency, which has been losing value since its launch in February.
Retailers offer discounts on United States dollar purchases and the greenback will get you in front of any queue.
Preserving the value of the RTGS dollar, a tough ask, is the number one priority for Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya and Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube.
But even they would not have imagined that their currency would come under pressure from the country’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The 76-year-old stunned his audience during a tour of cyclone-hit Manicaland on Thursday when he, after receiving a US$2,5 million donation from the United States, declared that the RTGS dollar was not “real money”.
In-between bouts of child-like chuckle, Mnangagwa showed bizarre excitement at the disaster donation, which he appeared to suggest was an endorsement from United States President Donald Trump.
“The most exciting one (donation) is Trump’s. Do you know Trump? The president of which country? From America? Yes. The ones who imposed sanctions on us. Yesterday, just yesterday, he sent his ambassador and he came with two-and-a-half million,” Mnangagwa said excitedly.
“Two-and-a-half million of their currency, not RTGS dollars but the real currency, the real thing. Two-and-a-half million, and they said use this to help yourselves but if you have other needs that you see you might need as well, we have a station in South Africa and we can give you more.
“The real problem now is for us to tell them what we need, that is the problem we now have, just to say what we want from Trump. Things change, one bad thing makes other things good.”
On February 22, Zimbabwe scrapped a 1:1 peg between the dollar and the bond notes and electronic dollars it introduced to compensate for the hard currency shortage, merging the surrogate currencies into the RTGS dollar.
On the official market, the RTGS weakened to 3.03 per U.S. dollar on Wednesday, according to central bank data.
The RTGS, launched at 2.5 to the U.S. dollar, now trades at around 4.3 on the black market.
Relations between Zimbabwe and the United States remain frosty. The United States maintains sanctions on Zimbabwe, which it says will be lifted if the country implements key political reforms.
Mnangagwa’s bizarre comments drew a response from opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, who said on Twitter: “Old man ED… How do you laugh at your own currency?”
Former Cabinet minister Jonathan Moyo said Mnangagwa looked excited “like a toddler who’s had a lollipop for the first time”, adding: “This has raised fears the money will just disappear.”
“Gloating about receiving disaster aid is psychotic,” said Todd Moss, a Senior Fellow with the Center for Global Development.
