The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has launched the second phase of awareness campaigns for the new structured currency, the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG).
The central bank is working with the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, and the Parliament of Zimbabwe to reach every corner of the country.
RBZ Governor John Mushayavanhu on Thursday, 25 April, said they decided to work with the Ministry of Information because it has got the reach of the whole country through the media, and Parliament because legislators represent the people. He said:
And if you go through the Members of Parliament, you will be able to reach all corners of the country and also these are the people who the people elected and they can guide us and help us to spread this message. So we are embarking on this campaign starting immediately.
Mushayavanhu said the second phase of awareness campaigns of the ZiG is targeted to reach all parts of the country after realizing that some communities had been left out. He said:
As we were doing the rounds, the message that kept coming to us was ‘we were not going far enough’; we were not reaching all the corners of the country and the people out there were asking what is ZiG? What is a structured currency? What difference is it going to make? How different is it from the RTGS?
Are we not doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results, but without changing anything?
And arising from that, we felt it necessary that we embark on an extensive and intensive campaign to try and educate the public on this new structured currency.
The teams going out to the districts and villages have been charged with educating the public on the new currency, ZiG, which replaced the Zimbabwe dollar as legal tender.
ZiG will co-circulate with other foreign currencies as the multi-currency regime will remain in place until 2030.
Meanwhile, Mushayavanhu announced that the ZiG 1 to 5 denominations, initially planned as notes, will now be issued as coins. The ZiG 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 denominations will be introduced as banknotes.
