adminthe Economy report for April, revenue collections for the month stood at US$263 million against a target of US$282,3 million reflecting a US$19,3 million shortfall.
“Of this amount, the bulk went to employment costs which stood at US$191,1 million, meaning that 75 percent of what we collect is going to employment costs,” he said.
He said the decline in revenues was also reproduced in the decline in agricultural output while Government still had outstanding obligations to input suppliers of fertiliser and grain deliveries by farmers amounting to US$19,97 million and US$1,45 million respectively.
“In order to ensure viability of both farmers and input suppliers, Government is in the process of mobilising resources towards liquidating these obligations,” Minister Biti said.
He also said inflation had gone down from 2,8 percent in March to 2,49 percent in April mainly due to a depressed demand caused by liquidity constraints and depreciation of the rand which is mostly used by importers.
“Our worry is that although the figures have gone down, they are starting to show signs of “stagflation”, which are signs of the low levels of economic activitiy,” he added.
He said the manufacturing sector was still hampered by a number of factors that include decreasing demand due to tight liquidity in the market and lack of competitiveness due to rising overheads and unavailability of affordable and long-term financing for retooling.
Speaking on the mining sector, Minister Biti said the total gold output for the month had gone up by 9 percent from 990kg to 1 081kg.
“Furthermore, prices of other mineral commodities progressively weakened during the month. The continued weakening of mineral commodity prices poses a serious risk to our export earnings,” he said.
He said the country’s exports had declined by 14 percent while imports had also shown a slight decrease of 2 percent from US$708 million to US$704 million.
He added that although the import bill had showed signs of decreasing, there was not much to be happy about as there was evidence of economic decline.
The annual broad money supply remained steady at US$3,8 billion with demand deposits and savings deposits constituted 52 percent and 34 percent respectively while long-term deposits were only 14 percent.
Minister Biti also said Government was in the process of negotiating with international financial institutions to try and resolve the external debt.
“We are on the verge of signing a document for a staff monitoring programme. Without it we cannot resolve Zimbabwe’s debt,” he said.
Online Reporter
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