Zimbabwe shuts Stock Exchange, Ecocash, One Money

ZTN Correspondent

The Zimbabwe Government has suspended the stock exchange and mobile phone-based transactions “to deal with malpractices, criminality and
economic sabotage”.

In a statement on Friday, Secretary for Information Nick Mangwana said “impeccable intelligence” shows that mobile phone-based money service providers were colluding “in illicit activities that are sabotaging the economy”.

He said the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange was facilitating such activities
“either deliberately or inadvertently”.

“. . .These measures are to subsist until such time that the mobile money platforms have been reformed to their original purpose and all the current phantom rates of exchange have converged into one genuine rate that is determined by market forces under the Foreign Currency Auction System which was launched by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on 23rd June 2020.

“Operational modalities and details of the envisaged measures are going to be announced by the relevant monetary, regulatory and law enforcement authorities in the next few days.”

Mangwana continued: “Government will concurrently ensure that prudent measures are put in place to mitigate and prevent any collateral damage that these interventions may cause to the innocent transacting public who were using these platforms.”