The advance of the ZiG, which has maintained its value in the almost three months since its launch, is being slowed by the reluctance of some manufacturers to accept it, and the determination of the informal "tuckshop" end of the retail markets to sell only in US dollars.
The Financial Intelligence Unit of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which plays a major role in enforcement of currency laws and regulations, has noted that the formal retail sector is easily the most compliant, leaving its customers to choose what currency they use and making sure that the exchange rates in use are the correct or allowable ones.
Wholesalers in general are also ZiG compliant, reports the FIU, and so there is this solid central section of the economy that accepts the new currency has consequently done so much to make it a functioning national currency.
But the FIU has seen problems at both edges of the economy, the manufacturers on one end and the informal sector the other, and unlike the large central section of the formal retail sector, these two edges are still not on board, or at least not fully on board with the ZiG, and worship the US dollar.
Manufacturers vary in their acceptance of ZiG, but while some take it and spend it in the same way as the formal wholesale and retail sector, others try and make their customers, those same retailers and wholesalers, pay only in US dollars, or at least pay the bulk of what they owe in US dollars.
So according to the FIU, there are manufacturers who will take only 10 percent or 20 percent or some other modest fraction of their price for an order in ZiG and want the bulk in US dollars.
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers has noted this dichotomy between how their customers choose to pay and how their suppliers try and demand payment.
Fairly obviously the industrialists need to be able to let their customers choose how to pay, just as those same customers let the ordinary shoppers choose how to pay.
As FIU director general Oliver Chiperesa has noted, if the source of products, the manufacturers, fully accept ZiG, the currency can easily cascade down the chains with everyone else willing to take it and, for that matter, no one will think of an excuse not to take it.
Manufacturers do argue that they need to import raw materials, and they are direct importers, so the business has to pay in foreign currency to a foreign supplier. But as legal and direct importers they have two sources of foreign currency.
First they can raise some of their own by exporting finished products. They only have to surrender 25 percent of the money raised from those exports for local currency and that can be used for taxes and local costs.
Secondly, they simply buy the extra currency they need from their bank. This is how the system is supposed to work. There are Reserve Bank rules about what the foreign currency bought from a bank by an importer can be used for, but generally raw materials are included in valid uses.
So manufacturers seem to want US dollars not so much for trade, but to hoard, a procedure that arose during the Zimbabwe dollar days when this might well have been a sensible business choice to preserve value, but is no longer the case.
So efforts by the FIU to uncover these activities by industrialists and then take action are necessary. The FIU can enforce rules through its system of civic penalties. These can be imposed when the wrongdoing is probable, without the sort of proof beyond reasonable doubt that criminal cases demand, and with set minimums but amounts rising to equate with the value of illegal transactions. They are often larger than any criminal fine.
At the other end of the scale is the informal sector, and in particular the tuckshops. The kombis and the vendors are starting to accept ZiG, basically for sums below US$1, and are recirculating the coins and ZiG10 note as change.
It is far from perfect but at least is less rigid than a couple of weeks ago, with ZiGs now accepted and given as change, although without floats collected from banks.
The tuckshops are a more formidable holdout. Some smuggled goods enter this sector, which is one additional problem with smugglers undermining the formal retailers and their adherence to tax laws as well as currency laws.
But in addition, a lot of manufacturers like to channel as much business as they can to the tuckshops, who pay manufacturers in US dollars without raising any question since they demand US dollars from their own customers. It is only because the tuckshops are, even when combined, too small to handle all the local manufacturing output that the formal retailers are supplied. And even there, as noted, there are manufacturers who want only US dollars from the formal sector as well.
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There is a need for a drive on tuckshops. No one wants to see small grocery stores and convenient corner shops driven out of business, but there is a need to make sure they operate within the full legal light of day, being licensed by their local authority, being registered with Zimra so they pay duties and VAT, and being willing to accept the currency the customers wishes to pay in.
The FIU wants to take action, making sure that manufacturers will accept ZiG payments and then removing this excuse from the tuckshops when they demand only US dollars.
There would be a second benefit, as most ZiG payments have to be electronic since there are no high value notes in circulation, that it would become far easier for Zimra and other authorities to apply taxes and other fees, and that would open a lot more doors and create new streams of revenue.
