Cash-strapped Zimbabwe is prosecuting about 50 hotels and tourist resorts for allegedly failing to remit foreign currency earnings to the central bank, a newspaper reported on Monday.
”The state has started prosecuting hotels and other tourist facilities for contravening exchange control regulations after they failed to remit more than $200-million (€163-million) in foreign currency earnings from tourists,” the state-owned Herald said.
Tourist companies are required under Zimbabwe’s exchange control laws to charge foreigners in hard currency and to remit these earnings to the Reserve Bank.
The central bank last week published a report listing ”errant” hotels that allegedly breached foreign exchange laws.
The report said ”26 hotels forgot to collect foreign currency and 23 hotels charged ridiculously low figures of less than $20 per bed per night to foreign tourists.”
In a monetary policy statement last month, central bank governor Gideon Gono warned that the police would track hotels and other tourist resorts that were holding on to foreign currency or charging foreigners in the local currency.
Last Friday a Harare hotel was convicted of breaching the exchange control laws by charging foreigners in local currency.
The Harare Magistrate’s court was due to pass sentence on Monday in the case in which the Executive Hotel is accused of charging foreigners who came through the hotel from January 1 to April 19 in local currency, ”prejudicing the economy of $6 979 US dollars”.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downturn in recent years, characterised by foreign currency shortages, triple digit inflation and high unemployment.
The country is also facing shortages of basic commodities such as the national staple cornmeal, cooking oil and sugar.
Various government intiatives to raise foreign currency, including a scheme to persuade millions of Zimbabweans living and working overseas to send money home, have yielded little success. – Sapa-AFP