HARARE – Zimbabwe’s annual inflation jumped to 191.6 percent in June, up from 131.7 percent in May, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency said Saturday.
Finance minister Mthuli Ncube has called a news conference on Monday where he is expected to outline a package of measures he hopes will tame inflation and runaway price increases.
Ex-finance minister and Citizens Coalition for Change vice president Tendai Biti, reacting to the latest inflation figures, said President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government “has failed and failed in absolute terms.”
“Zimbabwe now has the highest level of inflation in the world, thanks to the kick and hope policies of the regime. The consequences are a disaster for working families with 82 percent of the population now living in extreme poverty,” Biti said.
Ncube had projected that inflation would close the year between 25 and 30 percent, but it has galloped in the opposing direction.
Month-on-month inflation in June was 18 percent, gaining 9.3 percentage points on the May rate of 8.7 percent.
The food poverty line for one person was Z$18,425 in June, Zimstat said.
Amid growing unrest among its workers over salaries shrivelled by inflation, Ncube is expected to address an urgent news conference in Harare on Monday.
President Mnangagwa told a Zanu PF women’s league meeting in Harare last Friday that Ncube would announce “concrete measures to tame inflation and unwarranted increases in prices.” He would also announce measures to “secure incomes and savings of our people,” Mnangagwa said.
The central bank’s monetary policy committee last Friday said it would raise interest rates by up to 190 percent from 80 percent presently to discourage speculative borrowing that is undermining the Zimbabwe dollar.
