No Forcible Conversion of Accounts to Meticais

23 June 2011

Maputo — The Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Ernesto Gove, on Wednesday categorically denied the rumours circulating in Maputo, according to which the central bank will use powers under the foreign exchange law to covert compulsively all sums held in bank accounts denominated in foreign currency into the Mozambican currency, the metical.

Speaking to reporters during an economic conference organised by the Commercial and Investment Bank (BCI), Gove said that bank deposits, whether in meticais or in other currencies, are protected by law and the Bank of Mozambique has no intention of interfering with them.

Far from imposing restrictions, he said, the purpose of the foreign exchange law (passed in March 2009) and its regulations is to liberalise current transactions. There were, he said, various aspects in transactions involving foreign currency that, before the 2009 law, required prior authorisation, and this demand has now been removed.

But the law has nothing to do with the currency in which citizens choose to hold their accounts, and the Bank of Mozambique has no authority to transform savings from one currency into another. “Neither in the spirit nor the letter of the foreign exchange law, or its regulations, is there any intention to make an assault on the assets held by people”, Gove guaranteed.

The rumour may be a malicious misinterpretation of a clause in the law which obliges exporters to remit their earnings abroad to the country. These remittances should indeed be expressed in Mozambican currency.

The law states that such remittances from exports should take the form of bank transfers “and should be reflected in national currency in the account of the beneficiary, at the exchange rate of the bank which intermediated the export on the date of the remittance”.

This provision has been opposed by Mozambican exporters – but it has nothing to do with accounts held by individual citizens.

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