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Silent Goodbye a sad reality. (Mom passes on & leaves small Children)

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The quiet community of Ngodini, just outside Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, South Africa, woke up to heartbreaking news that left neighbours and relatives in disbelief. Twelve-year-old Ayanda had always been the responsible one. As the eldest of three children, she helped her mother care for her younger siblings, eight-year-old Sipho and four-year-old Amahle. Their mother, Nomsa, worked hard to provide for them, often reminding her children that no matter how difficult life became, they should always love and protect one another. One cold winter morning, the children woke up as usual. Ayanda prepared breakfast while waiting for their mother to get up for work. Minutes turned into an hour, but Nomsa never came out of her bedroom. Ayanda gently knocked on the door. "Mama?" she called softly. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder this time. "Mama, it's morning. You have to wake up." Still, there was only silence. Growing worried, Ayanda tried opening the door. H...
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Zimbabwe warns firms against using arbitrage for profiteering

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 At the end of the day, it’s the consumer who will be forced to pay more and that is simply not fair’ – central bank governor.

Image: Shutterstock

Zimbabwe’s central bank governor John Mangudya has urged large corporates to stop “manipulating the exchange rate” by exploiting the gap between the parallel-market and official currency prices for profiteering.

The governor expressed concern that companies are snapping up more foreign currency than they are allowed to through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s auction system, then selling it on at inflated prices.

“They are manipulating the auction system through arbitrage behavior. Some of them are coming to the auction with more than 50 surrogate entities and we have picked that up,” Mangudya said in an interview Monday. “They come to the auction and they are allocated the foreign currency at Z$86 but they offload it at Z$140 on the parallel rate.”

Under the auction rules, primary producers are allowed to bid for as much as $500,000 during the weekly auction while secondary producers can bid for a maximum of $100,000.

Mangudya said the entities are also pricing their goods and services using the parallel rates, despite having accessed the dollars at the auction system.

“At the end of the day, it’s the consumer who will be forced to pay more and that is simply not fair,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s central bank last year abandoned a currency peg and set up a weekly auction to ease a severe U.S. dollar crunch that forced companies to turn to the parallel market for foreign currency. Since then, officials have regularly raised concern over the abuse of the auction system.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has previously issued warnings to private companies he blames for undermining his efforts to turn around an economy plagued by annual inflation of 50% and foreign-currency shortages. In May, he published penalties for companies and individuals for currency manipulation that include fines of Z$1million ($11,620) as well as a “total ban” from the auction.

© 2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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