Zimbabwe's government will "buy back" the moribund Zimbabwe dollar from the population to bury the virtually worthless money, Finance Minister Tendai Biti has announced, according to dpa. Presenting the half-year national budget to parliament in Harare on Thursday, Biti also said civil servants, who have been receiving allowances of 100 dollars a month since February, would receive a pay rise from July. The details of the pay increases would be announced by the public service commission, he said. Details of the Zimbabwe dollar "buyback" would also be announced in due course, he said. Shortly after its formation in February, the new coalition government headed by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai suspended the use of the Zimbabwe dollar. At the time, it took about 50 trillion Zimbabwe dollars to make one US dollar and the inflation rate was being estimated in 15-digit figures. The US dollar and the South African rand were declared legal tender in its place. Biti said the move to buy back notes still in circulation aimed to "put a tomb stone on the grave of the corpse (the Zimbabwe dollar)" and ensure that all transactions were conducted in hard currency. Biti also announced that spending by the cash-strapped coalition government would be around 20 per cent higher than forecast in 2009, with the extra funds coming from foreign grants. Instead of 1 billion dollars, the government now expects to spend 1.22 billion dollars, 970 million dollars of which it expects to raise in taxes, Biti said. The government has forecast the economy to grow by 3.7 per cent this year.
