Ex-CIO RBZ director suspended again

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has suspended its senior officials pending investigations into allegations levelled against them by Finance and Economic Development Ministry chairman of the communications taskforce Acie Lumumba. Among the suspended directors is Director Financial Intelligence Mirirai Chiremba who is not being suspended for the first time.

In 2007, then governor Gideon Gono suspended Chiremba last week for two weeks without pay, after the eruption of a damaging scandal believed to have prejudiced the central bank of billions through under invoicing.

As divisional chief for Financial Intelligence, Chiremba - an ex-Central Intelligence Organisation operative - was responsible for raising forex on the black market for the central bank to bankroll key imports. But he allegedly abused his position by inflating the rate at which he purchased the forex, pocketing huge sums for himself with each transaction.

Highly-placed sources alleged that Chiremba would authorize the withdrawal of large sums of Zimdollars from the Retail Banking Division on Level -1 of the glass and mortar tower along Samora Machel Avenue and then allocate his various agents outside the bank to source forex from the black market.

After mopping all the foreign currency from the black market, Chiremba would then misrepresent the rates at which he bought the forex, alleged the source. "It was easy to fleece the central bank governor this way because no receipts were given from the black market," he said.

"But the governor became suspicious when at one point Chiremba claimed the rates were at Z$250,000 to the US dollar when in actual fact the greenback was fetching Z$180,000 on the day in question."

Gono then engaged his own investigators, resulting in the scam being exposed.

In a statement, RBZ governor John Mangudya said that following allegations raised by Lumumba, the apex bank had suspended Mirirai Chiremba head Financial Intelligence, Norman Mataruka (director banking supervision) Gresham Muradzikwa (head of Security) and Azvinandawa Saburi (director financial markets) effective October 22, 2018.

According to Lumumba, the four are involved in crimes around off-the-books bond notes, which are supposedly offloaded before delivery in the country and the corrupt allocation of foreign currency. Lumumba said the country is being run by a cartel, which Finance minister Mthuli Ncube was going to break. According to him, the cartel is being run by a 'Queen B'.