News / National
Hope, fear over bond notes
28 Nov 2016 at 06:25hrs | Views
Ordinary Zimbabweans have expressed a mixture of both hope and fear over today's introduction of bond notes into the market by under pressure authorities who hope that the surrogate currency will ease the country's severe cash shortages.
Many Harare residents said they felt they had little choice but to accept the promissory currency in the hope that things would turn out well in the end this time around.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is expected to introduce bond notes onto the market today with the majority of people expressing optimism that the new measure will be the panacea to cash shortages afflicting the economy. However, some people were of the opinion that there has not been adequate awareness campaigns and felt some unscrupulous people might dupe the public.
Authorities view the bond notes as a way of putting an end to cash hoarding and the externalisation of foreign currency, mainly the US dollar. The RBZ will release bond notes worth $10 million onto the market starting today with the withdrawal limits set at $50 per day and $150 weekly.
The notes are in $2 and $5 denominations and will be pegged at 1:1 against the US dollar. A new $1 bond coin has also been introduced. The $2 bond note is green and has images of balancing rocks on one side and the independence flame on the other.
The purple $5 bond note has balancing rocks and three giraffes. Security features on both notes include a Zimbabwe bird watermark, see-through perfect register, tactile marks for the visually - impaired, security thread, alpha - numeric lettering and optically variable ink.
Many Harare residents said they felt they had little choice but to accept the promissory currency in the hope that things would turn out well in the end this time around.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is expected to introduce bond notes onto the market today with the majority of people expressing optimism that the new measure will be the panacea to cash shortages afflicting the economy. However, some people were of the opinion that there has not been adequate awareness campaigns and felt some unscrupulous people might dupe the public.
Authorities view the bond notes as a way of putting an end to cash hoarding and the externalisation of foreign currency, mainly the US dollar. The RBZ will release bond notes worth $10 million onto the market starting today with the withdrawal limits set at $50 per day and $150 weekly.
The notes are in $2 and $5 denominations and will be pegged at 1:1 against the US dollar. A new $1 bond coin has also been introduced. The $2 bond note is green and has images of balancing rocks on one side and the independence flame on the other.
The purple $5 bond note has balancing rocks and three giraffes. Security features on both notes include a Zimbabwe bird watermark, see-through perfect register, tactile marks for the visually - impaired, security thread, alpha - numeric lettering and optically variable ink.
Source - dailynews
