By Bruce Chahwanda
GOVERNMENT is descending on errant business entities that are abusing foreign currency accessed at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe auction system to protect the economic stability prevailing in the country.
In a bid to ensure availability of foreign currency to productive sectors of the economy, government introduced the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe auction system in June last year which has further enhanced economic stability.
The facility has come under the spotlight amid concerns of abuse by some errant business people who are indexing prices of goods and services to the parallel market rate.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube says government will descend on dishonest business people to restore normalcy.
.”We have noticed in the fuel sector that those who access foreign currency and are supposed to sell fuel in Zim dollars have not done so, we are following up on that through ZERA and RBZ such that those who continue to violate rules of the auction system are brought to book. We are going to deal with culprits to ensure sanity prevails,” he said.
Professor Ncube also spoke on the performance of the auction system since it was launched last year.
“The auction has done a tremendous job in providing a place where those who wish to access US$ can access. It is a source of macro-economic stability and it has provided the foreign currency that those in productive sectors or importing essential goods can access it. Last year we have allocated over US$1 billion and over US$400 million has gone towards machinery and retooling. We are going to continue improving it, fine tuning it to ensure it keeps helping those in the business to access foreign currency,” he said.
Fuel dealers have been exposed as the chief culprits as they are accessing foreign currency for procurement of fuel in local currency, but selling the commodity in United States dollars.
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