Source: Ministers blames social media for panic buying – DailyNews Live
Farayi Machamire 14 October 2017
HARARE – A ministerial taskforce set up to investigate the root cause of
recent price hikes and panic buying is set to wind up its probe next week,
with preliminary results revealing that government blames social media.
Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha, who is chairing the committee,
said investigations had revealed that social media was the main cause and
not the months-long foreign currency crisis.
This comes after government has threatened a crackdown on social media
users it accused of spreading false rumours of shortages and causing panic
buying of fuel and other goods.
“Some were taking advantage of the chaos and went on to increase the
prices,” Bimha said.
“You ask yourself where is this coming from? Or is it about chancers? So
Cabinet last week put together a ministerial task force which I chair to
look into that and we have already started on that which is really short,
medium and long term.”
Asked if any action will be taken against the said perpetrators, Bimha
told the Daily News: “No, it’s not like it’s a committee to arrest
people, it’s a committee to make a proper study right from the issues of
use of social media, because it’s not just issue of forex, yes forex might
have been in short supply, but it was more of panic buying, panic buying
starting because someone sent a message on social media that there will be
shortages and naturally people want to cover themselves against risk and
then it got out of hand.”
Zimbabwe is confronted with a deepening cash crunch that has markedly
worsened in the last three months, with some banks limiting withdrawals to
as low as $14 in bond coins.
A critical shortage of US dollars has left businesses battling to import
goods and raw materials for manufacturing.
Prices of imported cooking oil and dairy products shot up, with businesses
arguing they are forced source forex on a thriving black market at a steep
premium.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president Denford Mutashu said
retailers had no choice but to increase prices because foreign currency
shortages were forcing them to get the elusive United States dollar from
the black market at sky-high premiums.
“Retailers don’t want to increase prices. But the issue of short supply of
foreign currency which has forced retailers to go on the black market to
get forex at a premium has been the biggest factor.
“We have no choice but to pass that component onto the consumers but not
because we want to profiteer,” he said.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) urged industry players and
government to remain focused on long term objectives of lifting the
economy from its current predicament saying all players needed to do more
to instil confidence into the market.
“The Nostro Stabilisation Fund is of course a short term measure, and we
need to remain focused on the longer term issues,” CZI president Sifelani
Jabangwe said in a recent update on the state of supply of goods.
“These include further boosting exports to earn more foreign exchange,
number two all players to do everything possible to instil confidence in
the market, number three continue increasing the capacity of local
industry to substitute imports, thereby saving valuable foreign exchange
and number four, above all, reduce the fiscal deficit to manageable
levels.
“…We saw a frenzy of panic buying which was taken advantage of by
speculators who bought goods and resold them at inflated prices. This
happened when the stocks were low, but adequate for normal consumption.
The low stocks were due to low levels of foreign currency allocations for
companies to import raw materials,” Jabangwe said.
“The foreign currency is generally low in the period August and March due
to closure of the tobacco auction floors. The panic buying and hoarding
disrupted the normal buying patterns.
“The fact that this happened over the weekend meant that suppliers who
were closed could not respond to the stock outs as and when they
happened…
“The RBZ has undertaken to inject foreign currency into the market through
the Nostro Stabilisation Fund. This should enable industry to acquire raw
materials and thus increase the supply of goods.”
COMMENTS