Zimbabwe Dollar Plunged After ZWL$2.8 Billion Payout To Chinese Company - Mawarire
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Jealousy Mawarire, the spokesperson of the National Patriotic Front (NPF), says the bank lending ban announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa nearly a fortnight ago was an attempt to conceal the “real” cause of the fall in the value of the Zimbabwe dollar.
On Saturday, 7 May, Mnangagwa issued a decree stopping banks from lending activities or offering credit lines to businesses and individuals.
He made the announcement during a surprise nocturnal address to journalists at State House while flanked by Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya.
Mawarire claimed that the exchange rate chaos started after the Government paid nearly 3 billion Zimbabwe dollars to a Chinese company.
After receiving the alleged money, the unnamed Chinese company dumped the cash on the black market in search of US dollars. Said Mawarire:
FYI (for your information), the purported suspension of bank loaning by ED was an attempt to divert attention from the real cause of the exchange rate chaos going on.
Get it from me, the chaos started after govt paid Z$2.8bn to some Chinese co which went on the black market to buy US$, we know it.
Mawarire was responding to another Twitter user, My World, My Time, who had said there is no evidence of the looting of national resources in Zimbabwe but foreign interference through the use of proxies.
Speaking after the ban was effected, Mangudya said that the PBZ will investigate companies that were offered contracts by the Government to see if they are not the ones dumping huge sums of Zimbabwe dollars on the black market. He said:
… we also understand that the Government is also paying part of those contractors in foreign currency so that the appetite for foreign currency is reduced because they will be having foreign currency from Government to buy their bitumen, spares, tools and fuel that they require for the roads.
So it means the balance that they get in local currency they should be able to keep it in this country.
But, if they want to preserve value by going to sell it again stoking inflation, then they are the wrong people who are working for us.