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The Finance Ministry has vowed to go after Local Authorities who are defying the directive to collect all rates payments in ZW$ instead continuing to set demands for the US$ in serious breach of government policy.
In May this year, the government directed all agencies including local authorities to collect fees and levies in local currency.
But in a statement Tuesday, the Treasury said it had noted gross violations of the policy directive.
“We note with concern the outright disregard of this directive by certain Local Authorities and Government Agencies who either have gone ahead to issue notices to the contrary or continue charging services exclusively in US$.
“The behavior is not only in contravention of the law but also militates against Government Policy.
Therefore all the government Agencies are reminded to comply with the government directive with immediate effect,” said Treasury.
Government reiterated commitment to the broad use of local currency for domestic transactions which started in 2019 when it adopted the use of the ZW$ as enunciated through various policy measures on the local currency.
To date the authorities have unveiled the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Amendment of the RBZ Act and Issue of Real Time Gross Settlement Electronic Dollars (RTGS Dollars) Regulations, published in Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019.
Several legal instruments have been promulgated by the government to facilitate the re-introduction of the ZW$ namely, Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Amendment of the RBZ Act and Issue of Real Time Gross Settlement Electronic Dollars (RTGS Dollars) Regulations , published in Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019.
Subsequently, the government published the RBZ (Legal Tender) Regulations through SI 142 of 2019 whose provisions were incorporated in the Finance (No,2) Act, 2019.
“For the avoidance of doubt, transactions that are clearly stated in the Exchange Control Regulations and these do not include billing of rates by Local Authorities.
“Furthermore SI 185 of 2020 states that persons with free funds cannot be compelled to pay in foreign currency.
They reserve the right to choose to pay for goods and services in ZW$ at the ruling date on the date of payment,” the statement added. NewZW
