PRESIDENTIALspokesperson George Charamba on Thursday said President Emmerson ordered an investigation into the anomalies surrounding the release of new currency to financial institutions across the country by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
The apex bank on Tuesday said it had injected ZWL300 million dollars of the targeted ZWL1 billion into banks in efforts to ease the liquidity crisis that has hit the country since 2016 after government introduced bond notes into the economy.
In a snap survey byZim Morning Post in Harare, queues at many banking halls were long and winding, with some banks giving out ZWL0.25 denominations to their clients.
“As you can see, we have only $2 coins and are giving out that. The RBZ never allocated us notes,”said a First Capital Bank employee who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation.
By Wednesday, the new currency had flooded the black market, with foreign currency dealers at Copa Cabana and Eastgate already making a “kill”.
This publication could, however, not immediately ascertain from where the “dealers” had got the cash.
As if to bolster the fact of the presence of huge sums of the new currency on the black market, a video went viral on social networks, showing a dealer with hordes of crispy-looking notes and new coins.
But from where did all this money originate?
No one seemed to have an answer to that, but Charamba had this to say on his Twitter handle: “Following images of crispy notes on Twitter, allegedly offloaded onto the black market, investigations are in full swing, with facts on the veracity of this development set to be known and shared. Concern about this development has been raised at the highest level.”
The presidential spokesperson also said the RBZ governor had indicated to him that investigations by the apex bank were now complete, adding that those involved in the new currency scandal would be exposed by end of day.