Zimbabwe’s 12-month inflation rate jumped to a new record high of 913,6% for March, officials said on Friday, surpassing a central bank forecast as the Southern African country’s economic woes continue.
“The year-on-year rate of inflation in March 2006 was 913,6%, gaining 131,6 percentage points on the February rate of 782%,” said Moffat Nyoni, acting director of the Central Statistical Office.
“This means that on average goods and services normally purchased by households for final use in Zimbabwe were about ten times as expensive in March 2006 as they had been 12 months before, in March 2005,” he told a news conference in the capital.
Nyoni said that goods and services priced at Z$100 000a year ago would now cost more than Z$1-million.
Central bank governor Gideon Gono warned in January that inflation would peak at over 800% in March before receding to below 500% in June and declining to double digits next year.
Items that showed the largest month-on-month increases were school examination fees (1 328%), domestic power, electricity, gas and other fuels (236%) and sugar, jam, honey and other confectionary (129%).
Year-on-year, hair salons (3 921%), postal services (3 062%) and rent (3 015%) showed the largest increases.
Zimbabwe state power utility ZESA, struggling to import electricity from neighbouring countries, was last month barred from slapping a 570% price increase on consumers after the central bank said it would fuel inflation beyond control.
The Southern African nation is in the throes of an economic crisis, characterised by rocketing inflation, soaring poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering at over 70% and chronic fuel and basic goods shortages.
Over four million Zimbabweans in a population of 13-million also face food shortages, according to United Nations agencies.
Workers and ordinary citizens bore the brunt of the economic crisis, with prices of basic commodities rising almost daily, while wages have become stagnant.
Inflation in Zimbabwe reached its previous peak in January 2004, hitting 624%. — AFP