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.

He said the Zimbabwean dollar, which was introduced as a mono-currency in June this year, performed well in its initial stages only to face wanton assault by some elements in the economy which saw the exchange rates inexplicably rising, thereby causing a price spiral in goods and services.

President Mnangagwa said this here on Saturday evening while briefing Zanu-PF supporters from North America on political and economic developments back home during an interactive meeting.

The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces is attending the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Although President Mnangagwa did not go into detail on the actual measures, there were reports of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) freezing the accounts of four prominent companies.

There were also rumours that the RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit had cracked the whip on bureaux de change thought to be fuelling the runaway exchange rate.

“On the monetary side, yes, we have introduced one currency,” said President Mnangagwa. “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.

“We have now arrested the galloping rate which was galloping from about eight, within few days it had gone up 10, and 20, by the time we left it had gone down and I think today it is about 14.”State media