The Country’s Central Bank, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has declared that it has no control of a huge amount of the foreign currency that is being exchanged in the country.

This was said by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Deputy Governor, Dr Kupukile Mlambo, who was standing in for RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya, when he appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in Harare yesterday.

Dr Mlambo all but declared that the black market for the foreign currency was out performing the central bank. He said the existence of the black market was a reflection that the central bank was putting wrong incentives into the foreign currency system.

“The existence of a parallel market is a reflection of a shortage in the system or wrong incentives in the system. Clearly we have to fix that and deal with that (black) market and the best way to deal with that is to make sure the interbank rate is sufficiently priced and there is always sufficient foreign currency,” he said.

Dr Mlambo said the only way they could control the parallel market was if the RBZ had control of all the foreign currency in the market.

“The only way we can control those kinds of markets where there is a parallel market is when the Central Bank has control of all the foreign currency in the system. As things stand we don’t have control of all the foreign currency in the system, a lot of it is outside our powers or purview and we have no way of knowing where it ends,” he said.

Dr Mlambo was also taken to task over the availability of new bank notes on the parallel market yet they were in short supply in the formal banking system.

“We interact with the public through commercial banks, we don’t sell money to the public. We give money to the commercial banks and we supervise them, and they give us returns.

“But if there is evidence anywhere please let us know so that we can act but at the moment we don’t have evidence,” he said.