Shilling hopes hit a snag as dollar rises

A dollar crunch has seriously depreciated the shilling.While indicative exchange rate by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) was capped at Sh1,682.99 on Monday, for instance, commercial banks exchanged among themselves by up to Sh1,701 per dollar, the highest since the beginning of the year, the central bank figures show.

Obtaining a two-third majority in the Constituent Assembly (CA) committees now remains a pipe dream, even as the committees continue burning midnight oil to wind up discussions on the two crucial chapters.

The shilling’s further tumble came as a defiant Finance minister Saada Mkuya told the House that there was nothing the government could do because all major currencies in Africa were in free fall, thanks to the stronger dollar.

The shilling suffered again this week against the dollar after failing to recover the exchange rate ground it lost for eight consecutive weeks.

The shilling has tumbled to a record low, with analysts and dealers predicting a freefall that could see the local currency trade at an average of Sh2,000 against the dollar during the campaign period. 

>The Tanzanian shilling is in very bad shape, so much that some analysts describe it figuratively as a currency that is in its death throes. It is cause for concern for us all, for it pains that while you could have purchased a dollar at around Sh600 in the late 1990s, you have to cough up Sh2,000 today for a single greenback.

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The National Electoral Commission (NEC) missed yet another key voter registration timeline on Friday, in a continuation of false starts to rolling out the biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise.