Addressing Zanu PF supporters North America division, in New York, on Saturday evening the president expressed his satisfaction with how his government dealt with the issue of cash barons who he said were responsible for the sharp increase of the exchange rate that we saw last week.
Referring to the newly introduced mono currency as initially stable the president told his party supporters that the government became smarter than people who were trying to push the exchange rate to unbearable limits:
On the monetary side, yes, we have introduced one currency. For the first six weeks it remained stable, but then our people are intelligent. We have people who found ways to fight that (stability of the currency) and undermine it, but yesterday (Friday) we also became smarter than them and so we took some action.
We have now arrested the galloping rate which was galloping from about eight, within few days it had gone up 10, and 20, by the time we left it had gone down and I think today it is about 14.
The government reportedly froze accounts of Sakunda, Croco Motors, Acess Finance and Spartan Securities which they believed to be pouring out billions in the market to mop up the US Dollar.
More: The Herald