Zimbabwe’s Opposition Alliance Says It Will Scrap Bond Notes

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwe’s main opposition pledged to scrap bond notes and compensate former white farmers who lost their land if it’s elected to rule at the next of next month.

The Movement for Democratic Change alliance will immediately scrap the controversial bond notes, with a longer-term goal of joining the rand monetary union and the Southern African Customs Union, Tendai Biti, a spokesman for group, said at the launch of its election manifesto in the capital, Harare, on Thursday. SACU consists of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.

A crippling shortage of cash led to the introduction of the so-called bond notes in 2016. While the government says these are equal to the dollar, they are not accepted by foreign suppliers. The nation abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in February 2009 after an economic collapse saw inflation surge to about 500 billion percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, and it uses a basket of currencies which include the U.S. dollar and the rand.

The southern African nation’s July 30 elections will be the first since Robert Mugabe stepped down as president following almost four decades in power.

If elected to rule, the alliance will also pay full compensation to former white farmers who lost their land during Mugabe’s often violent land reform program, Biti, a former finance minister, said. Black people who have been resettled on these farms will get title deeds, he said.

Source: Bloomberg Business News