FINANCE Minister Mthuli Ncube has dismissed United States economist and currency expert Steven Hanke\u2019s claims the country\u2019s inflation was much higher than the official figures presented by authorities.<\/p>\n
Hanke recently put Zimbabwe\u2019s inflation at 290 percent, presenting it as second highest in the world after Venezuela.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency recently put the country\u2019s inflation rate at 57 percent.<\/p>\n
Briefing guests at a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe monetary policy review breakfast meeting last Friday, Ncube expressed doubt over the methodology being employed by Hanke in determining the country\u2019s inflation figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing to issues being raised by Hanke, one has to know that there are many ways to calculate inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Zimbabwe, we have a very constant way of using the household basket to calculate inflation and that basket. Our inflation rate year on year is what it is as published,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ncube added, \u201cHanke is using something else like the replacement cost approach to calculate inflation which is why he is coming up with much higher figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe must not spend time quarrelling with us. We hear him, we know it. Figures are what they are and there is no need to fight because figures are what they are because of different methods to calculate inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The minister said what he only respected from Hanke\u2019s findings was the message that inflation was something to worry about and hence, needed to be dealt with.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe\u2019s economy has been going through turbulence due to failure by government to expand the national cake, lack of a stable currency and political instability.<\/p>\n
In the past, Hanke has come under fire for his advocacy of currency board systems, particularly from local government officials in countries where he has worked as an adviser, as well as from rival economists.<\/p>\n
For example, Former Bulgarian bureaucrat Krasimir Angarski who was tasked with the introduction of the currency board has contested the often repeated claim that Hanke is the \u201cfather of the Bulgarian currency board\u201d and has added that Hanke had no knowledge of the Currency Board law because Angarski refused to provide him the manuscript he was working on.<\/p>\n
In 1969, Steve Hanke began his academic career as a water resource economist in the Johns Hopkins Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (now the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering), a department founded by famed sanitary engineer Abel Wolman.<\/p>\n
At the time, the department was known as the premier water resource engineering department in the country, and was home to world-renowned sanitary engineer John C. Geyer, with whom Hanke would frequently collaborate.<\/p>\n
In 1981, Hanke was appointed a senior economist with the President\u2019s Council of Economic Advisers, where his responsibilities included the Reagan White House\u2019s water portfolio. While at the CEA, Hanke led a team that re-wrote the federal government\u2019s Principles and Guidelines for Water and Land Related Resources Implementation Studies, to include more rigorous benefit-cost analysis requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FINANCE Minister Mthuli Ncube has dismissed United States economist and currency expert Steven Hanke\u2019s claims the country\u2019s inflation was much higher than the official figures presented by authorities. Hanke recently put Zimbabwe\u2019s inflation at 290 percent, presenting it as second highest in the world after Venezuela. On the contrary, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency recently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,35],"tags":[174,327,205,150],"class_list":{"0":"post-4510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-economy","9":"category-homepage-english","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-inflation","12":"tag-minister","13":"tag-ncube"},"yoast_head":"\n