The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor, Dr. John Mushayavanhu, has said that despite the miners’ lobbying efforts, the central bank will not rescind its 25% surrender component for mineral export revenues because the foreign exchange is partly needed to fund government operations.
Miners have been pushing for an upward review of the foreign currency retention levels to between 80% and 85% in order to stay afloat in the aftermath of falling mineral prices.
But, speaking at the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe annual conference in the resort town of Victoria Falls, Dr Mushayavanhu said: “Miners are doing a good job of earning over 70% of the total foreign currency earnings but we will not review the retention upwards because we need the forex for the government requirements.
“They were a lot of miners who came to my office under the guise of congratulating me, but they ended up talking about retention. Let me tell you right now that we will not change it as we need forex to service government requirements.”
However, the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe president Thomas Gono said the miners would persist in their engagement with Dr Mushayavanhu.
“We will continue to engage the governor over the forex retention threshold. The commodity prices are subdued hence we would want a review for us to be viable,” Gono said. – (Business Times)