By Patricia Male
Following an acute shortage of cash across the country, Green Party Leader, Peter Sinkamba is advising the Bank of Zambia to intervene with a currency change-over strategy to avert bank failure.
The Bank of Zambia has confirmed a cash shortage in circulation, especially large denominations with some ATMs empty most of time while the Financial Intelligence Centre –FIC- has confirmed unprecedented cash withdrawals in the last months as people have resorted to hoarding cash in homes.
Reacting to this development, Mr. Sinkamba is of the view that if the Bank of Zambia takes this route, it would help to generate sufficient funds to finance Eurobonds.
Mr. Sinkamba explains that since the government safety nets are on the verge of collapse, it is important that the Central Bank thinks outside the box by swiftly intervening with an urgent currency strategy of a currency change-over.
He states that a currency change-over will have several advantages as it will generate substantial revenue for government through a sliding scale taxation of genuine deposits above set thresholds and will force everyone to bring back the cash into the banking system thereby increasing the taxable income and will further allow government capture illicit cash easily.
PHOENIX NEWS