OAD

Oraɣ d Aman Deketan

Established	October 20, 1924 (1924-10-20)
Central bank of	Charnea
Currency	Azref Aja

The OAD (Tamashek: Oraɣ d Aman Deketan, lit. "Reserve of Gold and Water") is an institution of the Charnean government which exercises control over monetary policy. In this capacity, the OAD acts as the central bank of Charnea. The powers and responsibilities of the OAD include the issuing and regulation of currency in circulation, maintenance of the national gold reserve, and the administration of the Charnean dual currency system.

Dual Currency System

The Charnean economy uses two distinct currencies as mediums of exchange, both controlled by the OAD through separate and parallel systems of valuation. This is known as the ABC, short for Alxalat Baddal n Charnea (lit. "Charnean system of exchange"), and has existed since the foundation of the OAD in 1924. The underpinning of the ABC is the virtual water trade that has for centuries served as the foundation of the Charnean economy. In the environment of the Ninva, water is the limiting factor which restricts the supply of all necessary goods and services including the production of food, provision of building materials such as wood and adobe, and the products and services derived from animals. The value of labor in Charnean society came to be determined by the cost in water of keeping a worker alive, indirectly making labor costs measurable in water.

For centuries, the nature of this system of exchange was hidden due to the use of the Azref, a currency backed by precious metals which has been in circulation in one form or another since the foundation of the Charnean nation. This was suitable for the overland traders and the businesses of the pre-industrial era, as the gold or silver Charnean coinage or in later eras the banknotes which could be redeemed for those valuable metals would retain their value outside of the then-poorly defined Charnean borders. However, as the process of industrialization began in earnest in the early 20th century, it became necessary to more closely control economic growth to ensure that the industry and population growth did not outstrip the available water resources. The solution the government devised was to establish the OAD and grant it legal ownership of Charnea's water supply, empowering the organization to issue water chit to local communities which would grant the holder of the note the right to draw a certain amount of water. The law mandated that these promissory notes be honored at any well, pump or other source of water, and enabled the papers to be exchanged freely among the citizenry, effectively creating a currency with a fixed water-value which could be used as a medium of exchange for the goods and services which the desert-dwellers customarily valued in terms of water costs. This currency was called Aja, the Tamashek word for the bag dipped in the watering hole to extract water, and it was standardized to entitle the bearer of each note to extract one liter of water from the source. The exchange rate of one Aja to one liter of water became known as the Aja rule, enforced by agents of the OAD through a system of limited extraction rights and contracts which leveraged the OAD's legal ownership of Charnea's water supply as a means to ensure compliance with the Aja rule.

Under the dual currency system, the prices of daily necessities for the Charnean citizenry are denominated in Aja, as are wages and salaries. The Azref currency is reserved for major commercial transactions, as well as for international trade. The dual currency system therefore consists of a currency of personal transactions and daily life in the form of the Aja, and a separate currency of capital transactions which is used in the upper echelons of the economic scale. Export firms and major businesses sell their goods for Azrefs, a portion of which must be converted into Ajas at market value to pay the workforce as well as to exchange for any water that might be necessary as an input in the production process. Certain sectors, such as agriculture, deal predominantly in Ajas due to their reliance on water as an input as well as their chiefly domestic market.

Currency valuation

Azref

The value of the Azref is pinned to market value of gold at an exchange rate of one Azref to one milligram of gold. Charnea is one of the largest gold producing countries in the world, enabling the Charnean government to exert a degree of influence over gold prices and by extension the value and inflation rate of the Azref. The currency peg on which the Azref's value depends is administered by the OAD through its control of the national gold reserve of Charnea, which buys gold from Charnean mining companies in exchange for Azrefs to increase the amount of currency in the economy and sells gold for Azrefs when the government's normal revenue streams are insufficient to fund the state. This process of buying and selling Azrefs controls the supply and market value of the currency and is used to uphold the face value of the Azref as being equal to the value of one milligram of gold. At current market values, the Charnean Azref is worth 0.13 Latin solidii.

Aja

The water-backed Aja currency can be can be exchanged for the right to extract 1 liter of water. The validity of the exchange rate is enforced by the OAD, which holds the rights to the underground aquifers as well as manmade and natural surface water such as oases and rivers. The OAD issues extraction contracts which stipulate adherence to the fixed exchange rate of one Aja per liter of water, known as the Aja rule, granting the OAD the legal authority to impose penalties on extractors which do not abide by the Aja rule. The value of the Aja is affected by two factors, these being the amount of Aja currency in circulation and the overall demand for water and water-based products, which is often used as a shorthand for the size of the local economy.