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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Sunrise of currency reform - Index of articles and reports on Zimbabwe's new currency reforms
Zimbabwe
currency operation seen as success, albeit tarnished
VOA
News
August 23, 2006
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/2006-08-22-voa60.cfm
Economists and
analysts are giving Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono
a passing grade for the three week currency conversion drive that
concluded yesterday with expiration of a deadline for the exchange
of old bearer cheques for new notes - but noted the dislocation
and distress the operation caused.
Zimbabwe National
Chamber of Commerce President Luxon Zembe said that although many
in the country lost money unnecessarily due to unlawful police confiscations
of expiring currency held over relatively low central bank ceilings,
businesses will be better off with the new currency with three fewer
zeroes than the old one.
Zembe said the
cumbersome old notes, whose use sent ordinary transactions into
the millions and billions of Zimbabwe dollars, caused system failures
while the massive volume of notes needed to buy everyday articles
resulted in lost productivity.
Economist John
Robertson said that while many were cheated while turning in their
savings, all will find it easier to conduct transactions with the
new bank notes.
Elsewhere, some 114 members of Women
of Zimbabwe Arise, an activist group, were still in police custody
after being arrested on Monday for protesting the way that the money
exchange program was carried out. Lawyer Simbarashe Chivaura, lawyer
for the detained activists, said 13 women with small children and
26 juveniles under the age of 18 years were released to lawyers
pending arraignment Wednesday.
Chivaura said
those in jail face charges of illegally demonstrating.
WOZA founder Jenni
Williams said authorities violated civil rights of Zimbabweans in
searching their vehicles and their persons in search of caches of
currency, and in harassing people during the currency conversion
drive. She also said the central bank failed to address the economic
problems that most Zimbabweans are facing.
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