bloated staff complement to help it move back into the black and function as
a reliable national bank, according to Finance Minister Tendai Biti.
The layoffs will mark the end of what analysts say was the use of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to prop up President Robert Mugabe's party
after years of misrule exhausted the country's finances and led to economic
collapse in 2008.
'There are about 2,600 employees at the bank but the board will reduce the
staff to around 400,' Biti was quoted as saying in the state-run Sunday Mail
newspaper.
He said the slashing of staff was the result of new legislation to restrict
the bank's operations to managing monetary policy, monitoring the banking
industry and to act as lender of last resort.
The changes at the bank are among the few major agreements to have been
carried out under Zimbabwe's 18-month-old coalition government between
Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accuses Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party of stalling on other promised democratic reforms.
Biti confirmed that the RBZ, under governor Gideon Gono, owed 1.1 billion US
dollars, for which it has been forced by creditors to sell assets. The debt
rendered much its new mandate 'academic for the moment,' he said.
Under Gono, the bank confiscated hundreds of millions of US dollars from the
accounts of major companies and non-governmental organizations. The money
used to pay for handouts to Zanu-PF party members, and to buy vehicles,
tractors, fuel and other goods which were distributed to party faithful
before elections.
To maintain the spending, Gono had money printed as fast as the bank presses
could produce, resulting finally in inflation of 500 billion per cent and
the abolition of the national currency last year.
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