The CEO Round Table executive director Kipson Gundani says the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s plan to sell gold coins to the public is meant to enrich the ruling elite while impoverishing the masses.
The RBZ said it will issue gold coins on 25 July as a store of value and to stabilise the Zimbabwe dollar as well as offer an alternative to the US dollar.
Gundani argued that the market value of the gold coins is way beyond the ability of the majority of Zimbabweans to buy them. He said:
This creates an opportunity for arbitrage where the connected elite will buy the gold coins in Zimbabwe Dollar terms and liquidate them in US Dollar terms, therefore making huge [amounts] on the exchange rate disparity which is a misnomer that is tantamount to transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.
The gold coins are coming in form of one troy ounce. One ounce at the global market prices today is US$1 750.
An average Zimbabwean earns maybe US$150 so one needs to serve for more than 12 months for he or she to be able to buy one coin so clearly, this is not designed for the poor. It is designed for the rich.
The central bank said the gold coins, named Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke That Thunders) after the Victoria Falls, will be identified by a serial number and can be easily converted to cash, tradeable locally and internationally and used to transact.