CHENGETAI ZVAUYA
High Court judge Justice Happias Zhou has reserved judgment in the matter in which an architectural firm is seeking to be paid money deposited into Central African Building Society (CABS) in US dollars as opposed to bond notes or Real Time Gross Settlement
(RTGS) dollars.
Penelope Douglas Stone and Richard Harold Stuart Beattie trading as Stone / Beattie Studio deposited US$142 000 into their CABS bank account in 2016 and have written to CABS demanding that no withdrawal or deposit should be made into their account.
Stone/ Beattie Studio also demanded that its account be ring fenced so that no transactions can be made on the account.
The architectural company also said it was not going to accept money in bond notes or RTGS.
Tendai Biti representing Stone/Beattie company said the firm was not prepared to accept any money that is not in US dollars since the bond notes and RTGS were valueless currency.
“My clients deposited US dollars into their account and are now expecting to be paid the money in the same currency, and not any other form. We don’t accept the correspondences from CABS that it can pay them in bond notes or RTGS,” Biti said.
Advocate Lewis Uriri, representing CABS Bank and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, argued that the bond notes and RTGS were legal tender and accepted form of payment in doing business transactions in Zimbabwe.
“The bond note is a legal tender and can be paid to anyone. The Statutory Instrument 133 of 2019 has not been challenged by anyone to dismiss the bond note or RTGS , so this is the money that can be paid back,” Uriri said.
Uriri also said the firm had not deposited hard cash into their account but had made electronic transfer payment and should not expect to be paid in forex.
