Desperate measures by Reserve Bank Governor

Gono unveiled a cocktail of desperate measures in a night television address Wednesday, claiming cash shortages will be a thing of the past.
He unveiled a new family of higher value bearer cheques of 
Z$250,000, Z$500,000 and Z$750,000, announcing they would start circulating on Thursday to stem a cash crisis that sparked fist fights at the POSB along Kwame Nkrumah, between 1st Street and Sam Nujoma Wednesday afternoon.
Gono announced he was recalling all the Z$200,000 bearer cheques starting Thursday, imposing a December 31 deadline as the date the Z$200,000 bills would cease to be legal tender.
A close analysis of the make up of Zimbabwe’s denominations of legal tender has shown that the cash barons mostly prefer the anchor of a Z$200 000 bearer cheque, being the highest denomination, a tough-talking Gono said in an address beamed after the 8pm news bulletin on State television.  The last day of depositing the expiring Z$200 000 bearer cheques is 31 December and any undeposited notes will become useless manure with no recourse for the holder to recover value, Gono said.
The highest denomination bearer cheque, the Z$750,000 note will be worth about US$6,66 at the official exchange rate, but only US$0.12 on an illegal but thriving informal market.
The bills are known as bearer cheques because they are promissory notes rather than official legal tender, but are used in Zimbabwe in the same way as money.
The Z$200,000 bill, introduced only four months ago, is no longer enough to buy a loaf of bread. The new Z$750,000 bill can only buy a loaf of bread.
Gono said his measures were aimed at punishing speculators that he claimed were holding on to $66 trillion unaccounted for in the banking system.
This time around I have said no to the slashing of zeros, he said. If this causes inconvenience on the computers that cannot be the governor’s funeral.
He also ordered banks to remain open every day during the 12-day cash-return period to December 31, and said he would dispatch officials from tax collector ZIMRA, the central bank, Anti-Corruption and Anti-Money Laundering units to supervise banks during the currency recall period.
RBZ sources said the teams also included officials from the Central Intelligence Organisation, which the governor conveniently left out in his address. 
The issuing of bearer cheques began with a note worth Z$10,000, to reduce the need to carry large bundles of paper money.
Within the next few days there will be sufficient cash to go about our business, Gono claimed.
An opposition legislator, who is also the spokesman of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, likened Gono’s desperate measures to face lifting a frog.
Tinkering with palliatives will not help, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told The Zimbabwean. Printing money is a direct admission that Zimbabwe’s economic engine requires an overhaul at the least and a replacement at the most.
Chamisa said Gono was employing exhausted strategies
We had a survey with our economic team today but the problems (of cash shortages) have not disappeared, Chamisa said.
A business analyst who spoke to The Zimbabwean on condition of anonymity said Gono’s hard-line stance in throwing out the window concerns raised by the banking sector about the failure of computer systems to cope with the zeroes was dangerous.
Gono refused to heed advice proffered by bank CEOs during a meeting Tuesday to introduce lower denomination notes to help computers cope.
 I have given advice to the banking sector that if your computers cannot cope with the zeros, let’s go back to the basics, Gono said. Go manual and buy accounting books that will have as many zeros as you want.
The business analyst said Gono’s obstinacy was retrogressive and showed his lack of appreciation of the role IT systems play in the banking sector.
Its recipe for disaster, he said. Banks are being forced to balance books twice a day because of the mounting number of zeroes, which modern-age computers are not designed to handle.
Chamisa said there was need for supply-side intervention, adding Gono was tinkering with symptoms and not addressing the root cause of the cash crisis. 
The government says it working on an economic blueprint in order to deal with the economic problems.
Zimbabwe is suffering from shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency. In November, inflation passed 14,000 per annum for the first time, prompting government to stop the Central Statistical Office (CSO) from issuing the embarrassing inflation estimates. The CSO claims it cannot issue the inflation figures because of shortages of key commodities in the inflation basket from supermarkets.
President Mugabe blames domestic and foreign enemies for the problems, while his critics point to the collapse of agricultural exports following a controversial land grab programme.
The country is struggling to pay civil servants and is thought to owe money to neighbours such as South Africa and Mozambique from whom it has been importing electricity and fuel