- Latest Steve Hanke’s statistics show that inflation rose to 1220%
- The government’s latest inflation stats show that year-on-year is at 86.54%
- Zimbabwe’s June inflation is expected to come high from both Hanke and the government’s side
Harare- Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, year-on-year surpassed 1000% to 1220% according to Steve Hanke’s latest inflation figures.
This is against Zimbabwe’s 86.54% year-on-year inflation rate from the Central Bank's statistics.
Steve Hanke is a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland who tracks and measures inflation stats of various countries.
At 1220%, Zimbabwe has retained the worst inflation stats globally from 745%, surpassing countries like Venezuela and war-torn states like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A huge disparity between Hanke’s stats and the government’s inflation statistics is mainly due to the latter’s adoption of the blended inflation rate. Even before the adoption of blended inflation, Hanke blamed the Central Bank for massaging the inflation numbers.
Equity Axis Economist Gerald Macheka said blended inflation is a misleading way to measure inflation as it sanitises and gives a false reflection that inflation is stable when all is out of hand, hence, saying there is a greater probability of accuracy in Hanke's ratings.
When the blended inflation rate was adopted, Former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti explained the move as pure undiluted heresy to rig inflation figures.
Hanke’s latest inflation stats comes amid weeks of price madness courtesy of the rapid depreciation of the local currency. During the latest auction market, the Zimbabwe dollar recorded its worst performance since May 2022 when it depreciated by 33% within a day.
Over the past 3 weeks, the Zimbabwe dollar has depreciated by a record 84%, the worst since its adoption in 2019.
Zimbabwe’s economic faltering is a plethora of confidence deficit in both the authorities and the Zimbabwe dollar.
Due to the confidence deficit, behavioural economics have overtaken Zimbabwe’s economic arena. People have lost confidence in the banking system making it hard for the Central Bank to restore savings and encourage people to bank.
With the latest prices madness, June’s inflation stats are likely to spike both from the Central Bank and Hanke’s statistics.
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