The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) says it has frozen additional bank accounts of companies and individuals for allegedly participating in fuelling the exchange rate on the parallel market.
Speaking to State media on Saturday, FIU director-general Oliver Chiperesa said that penalties for the offenders will be issued to them this week. He said:
This past week we also froze an additional six bank accounts of traders who were also violating the regulations relating to the prescribed rates that must be used by traders and penalties will be issued to them this week.
The penalties are usually in the form of fines and as we said before repeated offenders will end up being recommended for cancellation of their trading licences.
We have also frozen the accounts of 10 individuals and companies who were involved in the parallel market.
They are not necessarily traders but they are companies in various sectors as well as individuals whom we traced their transactions and found that they were participating in fuelling the exchange rate on the parallel market.
Again, we will issue them with penalties in the course of the coming week.
Chiperesa claimed that the black market rate is now starting to stabilise in response to measures and policies announced by the Government over the past few weeks. He said:
We have witnessed that for the first time in the last five or six weeks, the black market rate is now starting to stabilise because of the effectiveness of the policies that have been put in place which we are supporting as the FIU by making sure that those who destabilise the foreign exchange are dealt with severely in terms of the law.
On Friday, the street rate was hovering around ZWL$9 000, while the official rate last week stood at US$1: ZW$5 900.
More: Pindula News