Mthuli Ncube summoned over gold coins

DEPUTY President of the Senate Mike Nyambuya has summoned Finance minister Mthuli Ncube to Parliament to present a ministerial statement explaining how gold coins will stop the country's economic haemorrhage.

This is after leader of government business in the Senate Monica Mutsvangwa failed to "satisfactorily" respond to questions on the purpose of the gold coins.

Authorities have said the gold coins will be introduced on July 25 to ostensibly save the local currency from collapse and also halt soaring inflation.

But there is pessimism from the generality of largely poor Zimbabweans who are failing to see how they will benefit from the coins.

"The fundamentals of the economy are in the right place, the issue of the gold coins is a clear plan to move the economy forward," Mutsvangwa had said.

"The issue of the introduction of gold coins is meant to provide a store of value and strengthen our local currency and minimise the volatilities of the exchange rate. I think it will be better for the Minister of Finance to come with a paper in this august House to talk with detail to the last point."

Nyambuya then ordered that Ncube has to come to the Senate to address questions on the coins.

"We need the Minister of Finance to come here and address the Senate. These issues have been outstanding for a long time. Make sure that in the next sitting he has to be here to answer the questions," Nyambuya said.

According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), the gold coins named after the mighty Victoria Falls will be called Mosi-oa-Tunya.

A number of interventions by the RBZ and government in the past few months have failed to stop runaway inflation and galloping prices of basic goods amid calls for total dollarisation.