By Own Correspondent- Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube says the wave of price increases being experienced on the market and wild parallel market exchange rates have no economic justification as Government has successfully managed to stabilise fundamental fiscal elements that previously fuelled inflation.

Addressing industry and commerce executives during the International Business Conference (IBC) in Bulawayo recently, Prof Ncube lamented the speculative tendencies among business people adding that there was a lot of indiscipline in the market.

He said:

“We are doing very well on the fiscal front . . . Government is solvent, we are running surpluses and we have been doing average surpluses of $100 million since September last year when we came in. In January we had surplus of $102 million, February $85,5 million as we had to take into account cushioning of civil servants. In March, our surplus doubled to be just about $200 million.

Where is pressure on the exchange rate coming from? Before we knew that it came from the fiscus, we were monetising the fiscal deficit and then money supply would grow, but now where is the pressure coming from? Clearly it is speculation and that speculation is not a good idea, we know who is driving it.

Our job as Government is to make sure that our fundamentals that determine value of a currency are still strong.

We are not careless in terms of how we spend and we make sure the value of the currency is preserved, but you (businesses) should meet us halfway.”