The Reserve Bank Governor, John Mangudya, has just announced that the government will be introducing a new currency in the next two weeks. This is the latest ambush in a series of ambushes by the authorities.

The governor said that the new currency will consist of $5 dollar notes and $2 coins. This is probably due to the fact that the government is wary of fueling inflation by increasing the money supply. It could also mean, we are speculating here, that this currency was printed/minted a while back and not recently.

At the moment $2 will not buy you much these days as it has the value of about 10 US cents. If you want to buy anything it means hauling a sackload of these coins or wads of these new five-dollar bills.

The government lied

A few months ago Eddie Cross one of the members of the RBZ’s Monetary Policy Members announced that there was going to be a new currency this November. The government came out guns blazing and denied this. Well, it seems the government lied and Mr Cross was right.