Back to Index

Withdrawal limit up
The Sunday Mail (Zimbabwe)
November 30, 2008

http://www.sundaymail.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=970&cat=12

The central bank has with effect from Thursday this week increased maximum withdrawals for both individuals and companies from $500 000 and $1 million to $100 million and $50 million per week, respectively.

This development will translate into shorter queues at the banks, as individuals will now withdraw $100 million once every week instead of the current arrangement where depositors are visiting the banks daily to withdraw $500 000.

Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said banking institutions must ensure that their online systems prevent fraudulent breaches of these limits.

"The RBZ is aware of some banks' branch staff who are conniving with some medical doctors to generate false prescriptions in order to breach the cash withdrawal limits. Any bank caught doing this risks losing its banking licence."

He also urged banks to start submitting their detailed cash requirements, by branch, beginning on Tuesday this week.

He urged the public to use cash sparingly, instead deploying other alternative means of payment, as the country remains constrained by the adverse effects of sanctions imposed by Germany.

On July 2 this year, in response to calls for the imposition of sanctions by some local and international detractors, Germany abruptly terminated its 50-year contract with Zimbabwe under which the RBZ traditionally imported currency printing paper, inks, machinery and spare parts from Germany.

"The RBZ is, therefore, doing all it can under the inescapable realities on the ground to ensure that both companies and individuals continue to get reasonable cash supplies for their daily transactional needs.

"In the meantime, we call upon all well-meaning Zimbabweans, political parties, corporate world, churches and the generality of all other Zimbabweans, together with our regional and international friends, to add to the chorus of the voice of reason against the heinous sanctions against Zimbabwe."

Through the cash shortages, which are directly and overtly engineered and triggered by Germany, the ill and the sick in Zimbabwe are dying due to incapacity to either commute to medical centres or inability to access cash to buy medication, let alone consult medical experts.

"Because of the heartless and blunt sword of sanctions on Zimbabwe's cash supply chain, workers are failing to commute to work where they are supposed to generate incomes for the sustenance of their families, as well as help the economy produce goods and services for its livelihood," said Dr Gono.

Equally damaging, the sanctions on cash production are causing irreparable damage to Zimbabwe's human capital, as those with HIV and Aids are failing to access cash to meet their critical medical and dietary needs.

Added Dr Gono: "As monetary authorities, our hearts are heavy with sadness as we get day and night pleas on the cash issue, which in itself is a matter we are wholeheartedly attending to under the difficult and brutal poison of sanctions.

"We also deeply sympathise with those in ill health who are failing to get their cash to consult doctors or buy medication. We sympathise with those with HIV and Aids who are missing their prescribed dietary cycles because of the cash shortages.

"We sympathise with all NGOs, international organisations, embassies and other relief agencies whose well-meaning humanitarian programmes are being frustrated by the sanctions on Zimbabwe's cash supply chain."

The new withdrawal limit comes in the wake of calls from all sectors that it had become virtually impossible for people to conduct business effectively on the $500 000 daily limit.

Dr Gono said while civil servants had been calling for a review of the daily limits to $50 million per week, he saw it fit to double that figure to $100 million per week.

The Governor was, however, quick to point out that the increase in the maximum withdrawal limit should not translate into price hikes.

He appealed to the business community to be sensitive to the plight of the ordinary Zimbabweans by desisting from unjustifiable price hikes.

Dr Gono said the central bank was working flat out to build the stocks to release the $100 million. He said the statutory instrument would be gazetted tomorrow to allow the central bank to release the money.

Meanwhile, addressing church leaders at the Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe 60th Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in Harare yesterday, Dr Gono said there was need for every Zimbabwean to seek the Lord's guidance and believe in "Miracle Zimbabwe" and not doubt God's power to answer Zimbabweans' prayers.

He was outlining the current socio-economic and political challenges the country was facing.

"John Calvin Coolidge said in one of his writings that doubters do not achieve, sceptics do not contribute and cynics do not create,'' he said.

He said Zimbabweans were fast becoming a nation of doubters, sceptics and cynics.

"We even doubt whether we are capable of solving our own problems. We are self-cynical and are sceptical of not only our own capabilities as full human beings, but as a race, as a people and as God's creations,'' he said.

As a result, there had been stone throwing at those seeking to try new things. He said as a nation, the country now needed more faith and more vision of what tomorrow could actually turn out to be.

This could only be possible if Zimbabweans decided to shun individualism and selfishness, laziness, immorality, hatred, indiscipline, envy and ill feelings towards each other.

"If our politicians and businesspeople could have faith in each other and vision to see beyond themselves, we can transform this economy beyond anyone's imagination," he said.

"That we have remained afloat to date as a country in spite of many doomsday predictions is a miracle in itself especially given the nature of what is fast becoming known as Zimbabwe's casino economy.''

Zimbabwe has everything that a country needs, be it diamonds, the land, gold, nickel, uranium, platinum, asbestos and 40 other different types of minerals.

He said the indiscipline in the economy through the so-called "burning" of foreign currency was an iniquitous way of self-enrichment at the expense of others.

Some people had even found a biblical equivalence to this burning phenomenon by equating it to the story of the Lord Jesus Christ who was able to feed 5 000 men excluding women and children with two fish and five loaves of bread.

He warned those doing this that they would not repeat the miracle and get away with it.

"Now, that is taking the Holy Bible too far and as monetary authorities, we are taking decisive actions and response to ensure that real biblical events are not likened to iniquitous behaviour in our markets,'' he said.

He said those in such practice should be reminded that when Jesus performed his miracle, he did not harm anyone.

"But that is not the case with our miracle-makers at Roadport in Harare or the Gulf, at the World Bank in Bulawayo or on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Jesus was not involved in any fraudulent activities nor did he 'burn' stolen property as is the case when people attempt to buy and sell stocks from non-existent bank balances,'' said Dr Gono

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP