Zimbabwean News You Can Trust
Harare East MP and Former Finance minister Tendai Biti has taken a dig at current Treasury boss Mthuli Ncube over the free-falling local currency.
“There is rampant rejection of the local currency in the market.
“Local manufacturers are openly rejecting the RTGS [real time gross settlement], proving once more that an economy will never be run by statutory instruments. There is an urgent need to address the failed de-dollarisation experiment. What a disaster.” Wrote Biti on Twitter.
Government has introduced a cocktail of measures to stabilise the local currency including gold coins and the recently launched digital gold coin, but the local currency’s freefall has continued unabated.
“Zimbabwe has remained trapped by multiple crises — economic, political and social. The decay of infrastructure and the collapse of public services, the mismanagement of the exchange rate, the closure of political space, point to the fact that this lot is the worst regime in the history of governments,” Biti said.
The local currency, which was reintroduced in 2019 after a decade of a multi-currency basket system, is trading at over $2500 for one greenback on the parallel market against the $1 070 on the official market/Auction system.
Some businesses have ditched the local currency altogether, charging their goods and services exclusively in United States dollars despite threats by government to unleash the Financial Intelligence Unit on them.
Ncube could not be reached for comment.
Economists have said the continuous decline of the local currency is due to excess Zimbabwe dollar liquidity chasing paltry US dollars and thus putting pressure on the exchange rate.
