ED extends US$ use to 2030
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended the use of the United States dollar as a legal tender to 2030 as the redollarisation juggernaut rolls on.
The use of the US$ under a dual currency regime was supposed to end at the end of 2025.
The extension, which came via Presidential Powers Regulations, was contained in Statutory Instrument (SI) 218 of 2023 published yesterday in a Government Gazette.
“The Exchange Control Act is amended in section 11 by the repeal of subsection (2a) and substitution of—(2a) The provision of the Schedule, in so far as they expressly or impliedly permit the settlement of any transaction or the payment for goods and services in foreign currency, shall, notwithstanding Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019, be valid until 31 December 2030,” the SI read.
SI 142 of 2019 made the Zimdollar as the sole legal tender.
The US$ was readmitted as a legal tender in 2020 as part of measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Until the latest five-year extension on the use of the US$, Zanu politicians were adamant that the Zimdollar should be the sole legal tender despite statistics showing that the local unit was on its way out.
Over 80% of local transactions are in US$.
The extension on the use of the dollar should comes as a relief for business, which was clamouring for long term loans at a time banks were not offering loans beyond 2025.-newsday
