Zimbabweans to be compensated fully as local currency is demonetized

HARARE, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will use the rate of one U.S. dollar to 35,000 Zimbabwe dollars as it moves to demonetize the local currency and compensate account holders who lost their savings when the government introduced multi-currencies in 2009.
RBZ Governor John Mangudya told Xinhua in an interview Monday that everybody who had an account as of December 2008 would be awarded a blanket five U.S. dollars per account regardless of whether or not there was any credit in their bank balances.

Mangudya's comments allay fears that had beset the banking public which suspected that the RBZ wanted to credit the accounts with only five U.S. dollars and disregard the balances in the accounts at the time of the introduction of the multi-currencies.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries also issued a statement recently urging the RBZ to fully compensate account holders.

"The five U.S. dollars is the minimum but we're going to be using the United Nations rate of one U.S. dollar to 35,000 Zimbabwe dollars. We have revalued it from one U.S. dollar to 35 quadrillion dollars," Mangudya said.

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