Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi: Is RBZ part of the cartel or the accomplice?

By Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi

Zimbabwe’s problems started in the banking service when a total of 20 Banks closed in the last 20 years. That is one bank every year!!!

Zimbabwe’s currency has changed several times with the latest being the ZWL, depositors have lost millions of dollars due to bank closures and yet no one has been arrested or convicted. It is in the public domain who the thieving directors and executives are.

Zimbabwe’s problem is not the cartels but the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) which is Zimbabwe’s central bank. The role of the central bank is to control the money supply in Zimbabwe’s economy. It is responsible for issuing currency on behalf of the government.

These are two problems that Zimbabwe is suffering from.

It is common knowledge that financial services collapsed in Zimbabwe due to executives, directors, managers and well-connected politicians taking depositors’ funds as insider loans, non-performing loans (NPLs) but never bothered to pay back.

This is a typical case of the greedy robbing the poor and doing it with impunity. This process has now moved from the financial services to the central bank.

The so-called cartels had access to the banks and have now grown their tentacles to a stage that they now have access to the central bank coffers and can now operate their thieving activities with impunity.

If only the state had arrested the banking executives who looted depositors funds that led to bank closures this rot would not have moved to RBZ which has now been captured by the so-called cartels.

In November 2016, the former CEO of DPC, John Chikura, said they were suing former directors of Interfin for USD$136 million. However, this promise was never fulfilled.

If a listed bank, Interfin could be looted until its coffers are empty, yet RBZ was the supervisor and the bank was audited twice a year and the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) also taking a supervisory role. It should scare the living daylights out on what is happening at our RBZ!!!

This obvious corporate corruption is not only harmful to the financial service, but the economy and our moral fabric as well. Zimbabweans in general have so much mistrust in the financial and banking systems in Zimbabwe today.

Corporate corruption is now a disease especially if it’s perceived to be happening at the central bank and something must be done urgently to get rid of the disease, otherwise all the efforts to try and sanitise our economy will never yield any desirable results.

Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi