The names of the alleged money launderers cannot be published at this stage as we have been unable to secure their side of the story, but it has been established that President Robert Mugabe and Vice President Joice Mujuru were tipped off about the criminal activities by the syndicate.
Correspondence from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe dated 16 May 2007 and addressed to Mujuru by the late RBZ Senior Division Chief in charge of Exchange Control, Paul Sigauke, titled “International Money Laundering Operation” indicates that the top MDC-T official formed a shelf company that was used to import fertiliser and maize from South Africa.
The document, which shows that senior police officers shuttled between the two countries during high level investigations, says the company operated in direct contact with another South African firm (name supplied) that was responsible for shipping the inputs back to Zimbabwe.
The scam basically involved raising US dollars by one of the officials (who had strong links with Msika) by selling maize to the Grain Marketing Board and subsequently depositing it in offshore accounts of conspiring partners, one of whom is a former Zanu (PF) heavyweight currently living outside the country.
The money was then transferred to a number of accounts in South Africa to buy the inputs. The fertiliser, Sigauke claimed, was tested in South Africa and passed for transmission to Zimbabwe in the full knowledge that it was bad and would not be suitable for agricultural purposes. When it got to Harare’s GMB Aspindale depot, it was tested again and found to be unsuitable, yet GMB officials proceeded to sell it to farmers.
“The imported fertiliser … failed three independent tests in Harare but was sold by GMB knowing that it would not grow maize in Zimbabwe,” reads the document. The report says RBZ financed the Harare tests on the fertiliser. The shipment of the condemned grain and fertiliser commenced in 2007, but the document does not indicate the amounts involved, even though it says the contract to ship grain to Zimbabwe was “awarded by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe…without Mugabe’s knowledge”.
RBZ officials, in communication copied to RBZ Governor, Gideon Gono, and the then State Security Minister, Nicholas Goche, warned of the corrupt fertiliser imported through the company owned by the top MDC member.
The named company banked with a leading financial institution headed by the official’s close relative.
“(The intention) was to sell this fertilizer to communal farmers who did not know that crop failure was guaranteed. I am of the opinion that it was a plot to ensure that certain parts of the population would buy this and their crops would fail,” reads Sigauke’s letter to Mujuru.
The alleged transactions happened when the country was reeling under a severe inputs shortage.
According to Sigauke, Msika approached the RBZ and convinced its management to enable his colleague, who in the mid-2000s was also named in illegal grain exportation deals to countries like Mozambique, to pay back the money he had allegedly externalised when the police net closed in on him. This was done so that the colleague would not be prosecuted.
When RBZ subsequently dispatched an investigator to South Africa to verify the quality of the fertiliser, it was discovered that there was no such factory – as had been claimed when a certificate to export was given to the company based in Tzaneen.
Instead, “the fertilizer was being mixed manually by labourers with shovels on a platform at the old railway siding on the outskirts of Tzaneen and …there were 4 piles of different blends plus bags of rose quartz finely crushed to mix in the finished blend as was noticed at GMB Aspindale”.
Mugabe recently lambasted corrupt officials in his party, but analysts say he lacks the political will to take any action.
Post published in: News