Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube has defended his decision to blackout publication of year-on-year inflation statistics for the next six months, saying continuing to do so does not make sense theoretically and statistically, but retaining month on month figures.

Last week, in his 2019 Mid-Term Budget Review Statement, Minister Ncube said deferring publication of inflation figures “will ensure that we compare like with like in terms of currency regimes.”

“Given this transition, Zimstat will defer publication of year-on-year inflation while building up data of prices in mono-currency for a period of 12 months to February 2020. Year-on-year inflation publication will therefore resume after February 2020, alongside with month-on-month inflation publication,” said Minister Ncube.

Speaking at a Mid-Term 2019 Budget Review breakfast meeting, Minister Ncube argued that prices had not gone up in US dollar terms.
He gave an example of Mazoe, which he said was still within the US$3 range from last year using the current exchange rate.

He said the CPI indexes must be able to compare like for like.
“That’s why I recommended that because of this confusion, let’s do what we did in 2009 when we moved into the multi-currency system from the Zim dollar system. Let’s suspend the calculation of year-on-year inflation.

“It’s not making sense theoretically and statistically. Let’s focus on month-on-month inflation because month-on-month inflation is correct. Keep going with that until February 2020. Then we will do things properly,” he said.State media