RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya yesterday told Parliament’s
Budget, Finance and Economic Development Committee that the bank was now asking
Government to draft suitable legislation.
At present the RBZ cannot punish the perpetrators
sufficiently in the absence of supporting legislation.
“We have requested Government that they give more teeth to
our instruments. What we have at the moment is not deterrent enough,” he said.
Dr Mangudya said players in the pharmaceutical industry
were some of the major culprits, who obtain foreign currency at the official
rates, but were pegging medicines at black market rates.
He added that they could only suspend bidders from
participating, using auction rules, but said the rules lack legal grounding to
make them effective.
Dr Mangudya also told the Committee that RBZ will soon
institute audits of entities that were selling commodities in foreign currency,
but were not banking the proceeds, but continue to bid for allocations at the
auction.
Under auction rules those with foreign currency holdings
have to use these first before topping up with auction bids.
“We will this week publish another list of those who have
benefited from the auction because this has also assisted us in identifying
culprits who are abusing the auction as have received tip-offs from the
public,” he said.
Early this month, RBZ suspended 12 companies that were
allegedly involved in transfer pricing from the auction system on suspicion
they were offloading some of the money on the parallel market.
The auction system was adopted last year and has been
credited for bringing stability of prices of commodities on the market. Herald
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