President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reportedly "hinted on plans to reintroduce" the dreaded Zimbabwean dollar in order to address the current issue of cash shortages in the southern African country.
According to NewsDay, prior to an alleged assassination attempt on Saturday, the president told his supporters that the country was in need of its own currency.
The Zimbabwean dollar collapsed between 2008 and 2009 due to hyperinflation, thus, forcing the country to adopt a basket of foreign currencies that included the South African rand, the United States dollar, the British pound and the Euro.
This was not the first time that Mnangagwa hinted on the return of the Zimbabwe dollar.
In July 2017, Mnangagwa, then vice president, was quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper as saying that government was "building diamond and gold reserves to back the local currency upon its re-introduction in future".
* Sign up to News24's top Africa news in your inbox: SUBSCRIBE TO THE HELLO AFRICA NEWSLETTER
FOLLOW News24 Africa on Twitter and Facebook.
Mnangagwa, however, refused at the time to disclose when the local currency would be re-introduced, but said it would only come back when mineral reserves reached desired levels.
"We are building reserves of gold and diamonds which if they reach a certain level I will not tell you here, it will then allow us to introduce our own currency that will be backed by those minerals. I am not at liberty to disclose to you the level that we want those minerals to reach before they can back our own currency," Mnangagwa was quoted as saying.
For two years now Zimbabwe's worsening cash shortages have caused misery for locals trying to withdraw their money from banks. Cash remained on high demand, especially for things like bus fares.