Currency deadline extended in rural areas

had failed to travel to towns and other centres to exchange their old money for new cash by the change-over deadline.
The mop-up programme will run through to end of day on Saturday September 2.  Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono, tasked by Mugabe to revive Zimbabwe’s comatose economy, has also spoken against the mine law, publicly admitting last March that seizure of private mines would undo all efforts to resuscitate an economy in its seventh straight year of recession.
The latest pronouncement on the proposed mining law by Midzi appears to signal a new and more radical approach by the government, which is advancing exactly the same argument it proffered in defence of its controversial seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
The government says the proposed mining law is necessary to ensure local blacks also have a share of the country’s mineral wealth at the moment almost exclusively enjoyed by whites and foreigners.
However, just as land seizures scared away foreign investors from the country, the proposed new mining law has rattled foreign investors, forcing most to withhold various projects to expand output.
Mining is now Zimbabwe’s largest single foreign currency earner following the collapse of agriculture after the government’s land reforms. The mining industry, the only sector of the economy still enjoying sizeable investment by foreigners, accounts for about 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product and contributes more than 40 percent of all foreign exchange earnings in the country. – ZimOnline