Inflation in Zimbabwe hit a highest-to-date 426,6% for the year up to the end of August, according to figures issued on Monday by the government’s Central Statistical Office (CSO).
The rise from 399,5% for the year up to the end of July was the third highest this year. In the last month, household maintenance costs were up 39%, bread and cereals were up 30,4% and the cost of meat rose by 24%.
In the last year, the CSO figures said, cooking oil had gone up 759%, shoes by 582%, public transport by 460% and cigarettes by 453%.
However, analysts say the figures are conservative. They say the CSO measures prices of commodities as they fixed by the government, and not by the illegal black-market prices at which most basic commodities are available.
Zimbabwe is classified as having the fastest shrinking economy in the world as a result of reckless economic policies dictated by ageing president Robert Mugabe, and the destruction of the country’s agricultural industry as he drove about 4 500 white farmers from their property in the name of his ”revolutionary land reform programme”.
Economists say the regime has taken no serious action to curtail inflation, but insists on maintaining price controls, low inflation rates, big budget deficits and vast subsidies.
Thousands of Zimbabweans sleep on the streets of the capital each night in the hope of being able to draw small amounts of cash in a banknote shortage unprecedented anywhere in the world.
Reports at the weekend said the currency had lost so much value that prostitutes were now offering their services in exchange for groceries rather than cash. In June, the United Nations ranked Zimbabwe 90th in the list of the world’s 94 poorest countries. — Sapa-DPA