Farai Dziva|Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has predicted “economic prosperity for Zimbabwe by 2023.”

Ncube has conceded that the nation is currently grappling with temporary economic challenges.

” We need to go through some period of austerity, but the same builds us towards prosperity and I tell you that next year you will hear me using the word austerity less and less because we will start entering prosperity,” claimed Ncube.

“I think I will limit austerity just to one year and then we move to prosperity towards 2023. But quite clearly, you can’t do austerity for three years; it’s a bad idea. One year, get it right and move on.

The government is solvent. We are running surpluses and we have been doing an average surplus of a $100 million a month since September last year.

This year alone, in January, we had a surplus of $102 million. In February we had a surplus of $85,5 million (and) in March our surplus would be double that.

It will be just above $200 million. Money supply is not growing. So where is the pressure on the exchange rate coming from?”