Economically ravaged Zimbabwe’s inflation rate soared to a record high of 1 193,5% for May, officials said on Friday.
”The year-on-year rate of inflation in May 2006 was 1 193,5%, gaining 150,6 percentage points on the April rate of 1 042,9%,” 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 13 times as expensive in May 2006 as they had been 12 months before, in May 2005,” he told a news conference in Harare.
A bundle of goods and services priced at Z$100 000 a year ago cost more than Z$1-million in May.
Items that showed the highest year-on-year increases were medical services (11 029,9%), postal services (5 180,4%) and hairdressing salons (4 665,6%).
Month-on-month, the highest increases were in paramedical fees (7 500,7%) and medical fees (1 042,7%).
Zimbabwe’s inflation rate crossed the 1 000% threshold to reach a world-record high of 1 042,9% in April.
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.
An economic analyst with a leading finance company warned last month that ”current inflation is nearer 1 500% to 2 000%, which means the value of money halves in two weeks”, adding that ”the problems won’t go away until decisive action is taken”.
”A monthly wage buys less and less,” John Legat, CEO of the Harare-based Imara Asset Management, said in an alert on the state of the economy.
”It’s not surprising that companies are reporting a dramatic decline in their volumes.”
Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis, characterised by spiralling inflation, soaring poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering at over 70% and chronic fuel and basic-goods shortages.
More than four million Zimbabweans in a population of 13-million also face food shortages, according to United Nations agencies.
Workers are resorting to skipping meals and walking or cycling long distances to work as prices of basic goods continue to soar while wages remain stagnant. — Sapa-AFP