Zimbabwean inflation tops 500 percent

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The head of Zimbabwe's central bank is warning that the nation's inflation rate is headed for 800 percent.

Gideon Gono, who runs the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said consumer inflation was already beyond 500 percent and would reach 800 percent by yearend, the Voice of America said Tuesday.

The Zimbabwean currency is trading at $96,000 to the U.S. dollar, a 90 percent decline in value from the level of last January, Gono said.

He also said much of the blame for the hyper-inflation can be laid at the feet of a corruption that infects nearly all of the Marxist nation's bureaucracy.