We already know that things are getting worse for the average person in Zimbabwe and not better as the Minister of Finance wants us to believe. We already have plenty of empirical evidence to support this viewpoint but now we have more. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe in their latest publication has revealed that an average family in Zimbabwe now requires income of $40 680 ZWL per month in June compared to $35 877 ZWL in April.

This is because prices, which had been somewhat stable over the past few months suddenly went up when the government unleashed Statutory Instrument 127 of 2021. Prices didn’t go down as the government had hoped. Instead, shops simply hiked their prices to deal with the new perceived risk and to ensure that they would continue to obtain foreign currency from the black market.

This is because despite all assertions to the contrary most businesses obtain their foreign currency brom the black market. Most Zimbabweans get and sell their foreign currency on the same market. Rough calculations show that the RBZ auction supplies about a third of foreign currency in the market. Most of this is not even in the form of cash.

Other tidbits from the CCZ

The food basket increased from $15 303.88 in April to $16 8080.11 at the beginning of June. This means you now need at least this much in order to meet your food needs as a family. The average cost of living for a family of five was now $32 540 ZWL compared to $28 853 ZWL in April.

The increases can be attributed to service providers who are consistently adjusting their prices to factor in exchange rate movements and transaction costs of buying forex on the parallel market,