The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the government have been going around trying to force people to use the so-called official rate but data recently shared by the RBZ shows that of all recorded transactions only 30% of the money is disbursed and provided for by the RBZ. The rest comes out of the FCA accounts of the companies involved.

This essentially means that the government wants to use a rate obtained from what is essentially a minority auction and impose it upon the market. Naturally, this leads to pricing distortions, losses and loads of confusion. Below is the data from the RBZ showing formal foreign currency movements over the 9 months ending in November. It’s ridiculous that the RBZ wants everyone to use their so-called official rate which is based on 30% of transactions instead of using bona fide market rates.

Month	Foreign Currency Accounts (FCAs)	Interbank Market Payments	Foreign Currency Auction Allotments	Total
Jan-21	300,309,728	24,276,155	99,194,883	423,780,767
Feb-21	458,986,749	37,049,364	147,216,349	643,252,462
Mar-21	363,258,240	52,958,997	178,876,453	595,093,690
Apr-21	241,802,172	29,558,900	128,056,464	399,417,536
May-21	301,031,506	29,713,430	159,699,141	490,444,077
Jun-21	358,546,908	27,953,907	207,003,995	593,504,810
Jul-21	360,185,940	25,027,355	185,720,760	570,934,055
Aug-21	296,209,332	19,911,086	236,874,671	552,995,089
Sep-21	471,025,660	29,221,093	158,898,808	659,145,561
Total	3,151,356,235	275,670,287	1,501,541,525	4,928,568,047
Proportion	64%	6%	30%	100%