By STAFF REPORTER
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) yesterday froze the bank accounts of a Chinese construction company, China Nanchang, on suspicion of injecting millions of dollars into the parallel market to buy foreign currency.
RBZ had earlier issued a statement warning illegal foreign exchange rate manipulators, saying their activities had exerted pressure on the exchange rate in the last few days.
Central bank governor John Mangudya said the RBZ escalated the matter to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) for investigation and had so far identified one entity, China Nanchang, which had used its bank account to inject millions of dollars into the parallel market in the last few days.
“The FIU has ordered the freezing of the identified account pending further analysis and is undertaking ongoing surveillance to identify more culprits involved in the parallel market transactions, particularly on the EcoCash platform,” Mangudya said.
He said they would maintain focus on ensuring market stability.
The Zimdollar rate to the US dollar had tumbled to 1:26 in the past few days, from around 1:23 over the past several weeks.
