A total of
about $50 million raised by the Government and regional financial
institutions, meant for various facilities targeted at supporting the revival
of productive sectors, is stuck in Interfin Bank.
Interfin
Bank, now under recuperative curatorship, managed the Government’s $20 million
contribution under the $70 million Zimbabwe Economic and Trade Revival Facility
it jointly funded with Afreximbank.
Companies
have also failed to access resources amounting to $21 million availed by the
PTA Bank under different facilities.
In addition,
other funds stuck in Interfin include $9,7 million from Afreximbank, being the
balance unpaid from $15 million extended to Interfin for on-lending to clients
under a facility separate from ZETREF.
In a
statement yesterday, the Ministry of Finance said out of the $20 million only $2,6
million was released in October last year. Thereafter, Interfin failed to
release an additional $5 million requested by the Government despite numerous
appeals for the release the funds.
But this
prompted the Ministry of Finance to
request the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to investigate the operations of the bank. Interfin Bank
was then placed under curatorship for six months following accusations that
controlling shareholders abused depositors’ funds for their own benefit. Now
the Ministry of Finance says the performance of ZETREF is being hampered by
liquidity challenges at Interfin.
“Interfin’s
illiquidity has now undermined the performance of our ZETREF,” read part of the
statement by the Ministry of Finance.
ZETREF, a $70
million facility, was signed between the Government and Afreximbank in 2010 to
revive the productive sectors.
The
Government contributed $20 million to the facility while $50 million came from
Afreximabnk. A total of 11
banks are participating under the ZETREF facility through accessing funding for
their clients for capital expenditure and working capital.
Under the
facility, participating banks would submit their projects to Interfin. After
approvals, banks would submit requests for drawdowns to Afreximbank.
To date, at
total of $24,5 million has been disbursed since August 2010.
1 comments:
So what is the true story? Is the money at InterFin or InterFin was supposed to have the money but government cannot access it?
Ndo maIndigenous banks enyu amunoti achasumudzira Zimbabwe
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