Further Evidence that the RBZ is Destroying the Economy

By Levi Mhaka

Published on December 31, 2007

Its slowly coming out as to who is the Grand Master of forex dealers in Zimbabwe i.e. Gideon Gono.

The Sunday Mail of December 30, 2007 reports that David Butau has escaped to Britain following attempts to arrest him over alleged exchange control violations.

The truth of the matter could be that Butau MERELY owes the RBZ money in local currency because he did not pay forex to Michigan Tractors after he was paid by Acondex Investments Pvt Ltd, a company owned by Munyaradzi Manjoro.

Cynthetic Cotton, a subsidiary of Dande Capital Holdings Pvt Ltd was named by Manjoro (who has since been arrested over the missing funds as reported below, but has surprisingly not appeared in court yet) has been one of the receivers of the money as directed by Raymond Chigogwana, of Premier Banking Corporation.

Michigan Tractors has been a beneficiary of payments made by companies who would have been paid by either the RBZ or the numerous middlemen of the companies who would have received money from the RBZ.

Butau could not have paid Michigan Tractors the mentioned 573,000 pounds unless doing so for the RBZ or RBZ'a direct agent known by Munyaradzi Manjoro. Let us wait to see what paperwork Butau has to exonerate himself at the same time exposing Gono of what he is - a Grand Master of forex dealers and a Forex Baron.

Gono has been buying the agricultural mechanisation equipment, fertiliser, seed maize, motor vehicles, etc through the forex black market. Butau's crime is that he did not pay the forex to Michigan Tractors in respect of the local currency received through Manjoro.

Manjoro had received the local currency at 'black' market rate from a company who had got the money from the RBZ. The RBZ had paid for the money purportedly that it was doing so to a company with access to "free funds". Gono would obviously not know all forex dealers but if each of high value local curency for forex supply is traced backwards, it will lead to the RBZ agent showing all the corruption being driven by the central bank.