problems relating to the deterioration of coinage were a recurring theme in the legislative assembly. the hopeless confusion resulted in mix - ups, hampered trade and travel, and meant that capital remained idle. 5 sixty years later, however, in 1890, the swiss multiple currency period was already past history. nevertheless, swiss monetary history had remained eventful. since 1850, the swiss franc had been defined in terms of silver, in line with the french franc, and after 1860, it was also defined in gold. 6 at the same time, foreign money was still in use, in the form of coins worth their face value. unlike the situation in 1830, banknotes played an important role in payments transactions in 1890 ( if not, perhaps for buying bread ), partly because coins are unpractical for larger transactions. by now, the federal banknote act of 1881 had come into effect. this legislation included provisions requiring the 29 issuing banks to hold at least 40 % of their banknotes in circulation in the form of currency metal. in other words, banknotes were a kind of cash substitute and did not qualify as legal instruments of payment. 7 since banks did not gear their banknote issue to fluctuations in demand, there were regular bottlenecks in supply on days when large numbers of bills had to be paid. our next leap in time takes us to the year 1950. by now, only swiss coins and banknotes issued by the snb were in circulation. the confederation had transferred the exclusive right to issue banknotes to the snb, which began business operations in 1907. switzerland had been incorporated in the bretton woods fixed exchange rate system created in 1944, which was based on the us dollar as the lead currency – but ultimately on gold, since a fine ounce of gold was equivalent to precisely usd 35. however, for private individuals it had been impossible to exchange banknotes for gold at the snb since 1936. paul meier : der wahrungswirrwarr von der helvetik bis zur bundesverfassung, dissertation, berne 1951, p. 60. the true scale of the multiple currency confusion only became apparent 20 years later in connection with centralisation of the coinage system at federal level. at this point, in 1851 and 1852, following the introduction of the swiss franc, the old types of domestic coins were collected. a list of coins drawn up by the coinage commission featured 320 different coin types, although estimates came to as many as 86

virtually all the land rights in the communal areas are customary rights, with their own registration system. this is unlike in the rest of the country where land rights are registered in a properly functioning deeds office. this implies that over 50 per cent of the namibian population does not have secure and tradable land rights. it further means that half of the namibian people cannot use their land to raise capital. consequently, it means that 38 per cent of namibia ’ s land is what is termed as “ dead capital ”. director of ceremonies, this is another example of a dual namibia, that is, one country, with a less formal tenure system for the communal areas and an advanced one that allows for security and tradability for the rest of the country. ladies and gentlemen, the land tenure system is an important factor in explaining development or lack thereof. in his book titled “ the mystery of capital ”, hernando de soto, termed by the time magazine as one of the five leading latin american innovators of the twentieth century, demonstrates with startling research findings from asia, africa, latin america and the former socialist ’ countries that a major problem in developing countries is their inability to use land rights to produce capital. according to de soto, the problem is in the fact that most developing countries ’ residents hold resources in defective forms. a typical example of this, ladies and gentlemen, is, a house built on land whose ownership rights are not adequately recorded and not tradable. in such an environment, this asset cannot be turned into capital and cannot be used as collateral. this situation is contrary to what is generally happening in advanced countries, where every building and every piece of land is legally documented, which essentially activates that asset as a resource to potentially participate in economic activities. by de soto ’ s calculations, the total value of the real estates held in a defective form by the poor of the third world and bis central bankers ’ speeches former socialist nations is estimated to be around usd9. 3 trillion. in namibia, these assets could amount to n $ 20 billion representing about 23 per cent of gdp. let ’ s imagine, ladies and gentleman, a situation where only 30 per cent of the communal land is turned into productive capital. this may potentially unlock a sizable investment equivalent to 7 per cent of gdp, almost equal to the current contribution of the mining sector to gdp. the question is ; what will the impact be if it is not 30 per cent, but 80 per cent of