Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Mthuli Ncube has claimed that the African Export and Import Bank (Afreximbank) has offered Zimbabwe a facility to guarantee the convertibility of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) bank balances into United States Dollars.
Ncube also said that the bank had pledged to guarantee the availability of United States Dollars for Nostro foreign currency accounts. The minister seems to be backtracking on the pronouncements he made on Monday. Speaking at Chatham House, Ncube said that bond notes were not at par with united states dollars and said that he was not going to argue with the market which had made the declaration. The minister seems to have changed his position and is now saying that the government will maintain that RTGS balances are equal to United States dollars as a way to preserve people’s savings.
Writing on Twitter, Ncube said,
Today in Bali, Indonesia at the IMF/World Bank Meetings, I had fruitful discussions with the President of Afreximbank Dr Oramah. Afreximbank has offered Zimbabwe a facility to guarantee 1:1 Convertibility of RTGS balances into US$ and availability of US$ for Nostro FCAs.
In a statement, the Minister also said that all cooperating partners had endorsed Zimbabwe’s latest economic blueprint, the Transitional Stabilization Program (TSP). Part of the statement from the Minister reads,
The co-operating partners expressed their endorsement to the Transitional Stabilisation Programme, as it captures adequately the policy reforms that Government is implementing in order to turn around the country’s economic fortunes. In this regard, the international community emphasized the need to judiciously implement the measures as outlined in the TSP. They reiterated that implementation of the TSP is crucial for arrears clearance.
…It is also important to note that all the cooperating partners and creditors present, uniformly expressed their partners for Zimbabwe and its arrears clearance Road Map, and that the meeting has been the best so far on Zimbabwe’s arrears clearance process.
