We defeated forex cartels: Mnangagwa

Government last Friday outsmarted some individuals and entities that were behind the sharp rise in foreign exchange rates, a development that has seen the United States dollar falling against the local unit, President Mnangagwa has said.

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.

On Friday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) froze bank accounts of four prominent companies, 1 of them run by Kuda Tagwirei, a close ally of President Mnangagwa and another run by a Mnangagwa family member.

The government temporarily 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.