Zimdollar maintains gains against greenback

Harare (New Ziana) – The Zimbabwe dollar maintained its recent steady gains against the greenback in trading on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said.

For the third week running, the local currency gained just under $400 to trade at $4 998.8352 at Tuesday’s auction trading, up from the previous week’s $5 396.

Bids worth US$5.830 million were accepted, while others worth US$5.640 million were allotted with the US$20 million on offer not fully used.

The highest rate offered was $5 354, while the lowest bid was $4 900, with raw materials taking up US$180 699.78 while machinery and equipment got an allocation of US60 678258.

Consumables, including spares, tyres and electricals got US$21 000. Services, (loans, education, dividends and disinvestments received US$150 000 and pharmaceuticals and chemicals US$3 000.

All bids for the retail auction with the pre-announced amount were allotted in full, while those with overdue CDIs, outstanding bills of entry (BOEs) and insufficient local currency were turned down. Also disqualified were entities with sufficient FCA balances in their accounts.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has named 17 entities from around the country, mostly pharmacies, which allegedly were using extortionate exchange rates of between $9 000 and $11 000.

Others were charging their goods exclusively in foreign currency.

It said the government remained committed to the broad use of the local currency for domestic transactions and warned that stern action will be taken against service providers found committing currency exchange rate violations.

The Ministry encouraged the public to resist all forms of unfair pricing by retailers and report all currency exchange violations.

Addressing a ZANU (PF) election campaign rally at Mangunje Growth Point last Saturday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa accused some captains of industry of sabotaging government’s economic development policies, and threatened stern against them if the practice persisted.

He threatened to name the businesses involved in hoarding and manipulating the country’s currency with the hope of fomenting public anger against the government ahead of next month’s general elections.

New Ziana