THE country’s foreign currency squeeze has reportedly
forced some government departments and parastatals to source the elusive United
States dollars from the parallel market to fund their various activities in
contravention of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s (RBZ) foreign currency exchange
regulations, NewsDay has learnt.
This was revealed yesterday when Zimbabwe National Roads
Administration (Zinara) chief executive officer, Nancy Masiiwa testified at the
High Court in a matter where the parastatal’s five executives are being charged
with sourcing over $2,8 million from the black market to pay off part of the
parastatal’s debt to Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
Although she admitted that the move was illegal, Masiiwa
revealed that Infralink (Pvt) Ltd sourced $2 940 588 through Caudless (Pvt) Ltd
and Grayriver (Pvt) Ltd.
Infralink is a Zinara special purpose vehicle, jointly
owned by Zinara and Group Five (Pvt) Ltd, with a shareholding of 75% and 25%,
respectively.
Masiiwa claimed the money was meant to pay off a $206
million loan sourced from DBSA, sourced through Infralink.
The loan had been sourced by Zinara for the construction
and rehabilitation of the 823km-long Plumtree-Mutare Highway.
The illegitimate move by the parastatal came at a time when
law enforcement agents have been engaged in running battles with money changers
after Parliament, through the RBZ, outlawed the activity and called for stiffer
penalties against convicted offenders.
Through their lawyer, Rekai Maposa, all the suspects —
Simon Mudzingwa Taranhike, Shadreck Matengabadza, Stephen Matute, Givemore
Tatenda Kufa and Precious Murove — pleaded not guilty to the charge when they appeared
before High Court judge Justice Amie Tsanga.
In their defence, the suspects claimed the charge against
them was politically motivated after they were linked to President Emmerson
Mnangagwa’s Team Lacoste Zanu PF faction.
They claimed the charges were concocted after they
allegedly refused to carry out instructions from Masiiwa to embezzle public
funds.
But in her evidence, Masiiwa said after Zinara realised
that the non-serviced loan had ballooned to an unsustainable level of over
$14,5 million, she instructed Zinara’s finance director, Taranhike, to be
innovative and find suitable financiers to help in raising the money to pay off
the debt.
“There was never a time that I (Masiiwa), as the chief
executive officer of Zinara, or any member of the executive instructed the
finance director or his deputy to source hard currency from the informal market
for to do so was in violation of the standing rules.
“In the event that the finance director faced challenges
implementing these tasks, he was supposed to apprise my office or the board of
the challenges for further management,” she said.
“I got to know about a company called Grayriver (Pvt) Ltd
through key payments for the weekly returns, which were submitted by the
finance director on June 20, 2017.
“I was surprised when the finance director informed me that
the finance department had raised $2,8 million from the informal market . . .
in this case, the finance director or his deputy did not consult with the board
or the executive before they went into the informal market to source foreign
currency.”
Justice Tsanga asked Masiiwa if, for a period of about six
weeks, she was not in the picture that the money had been sourced from the
parallel market and paid towards the loan.
“I was not aware that something had been paid,” she
responded. “The information was hidden from the executive.
“Zinara would not have sourced cash from the parallel
market for doing so would be illegal.”
On Monday, prosecutor Chris Mutangadura called the first
State witness, Presidential Affairs permanent secretary Judith Katerera, who
told the court she was a former permanent secretary in the Transport ministry.
Katerera said all she knew was that Zinara obtained a loan
from DBSA, which had accumulated $21 million in interest and needed to be
settled as a matter of urgency.
At least nine witnesses have been lined up to give evidence
and they are Christopher Hokonya, former Zinara board chairman Albert Mugabe,
Shadreck Chezani, Honest Kugotsi, Patrick Takawira, Tonderai Marange and Bruce
Michael Black. Newsday
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