Open Letter to the RBZ Governor, Gideon Gono

By Levi Mhaka

Published on November 21, 2006

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) that you head was involved in the procurement of fertilizer from South Africa . Your Novermber 11, 2006 press statement as available on the RBZ website did not address pertinent issues. For that reason, answers to the following questions are required:

1. Are you aware of the State Procurement Policies, Procedures and Regulations in Zimbabwe?
2. Did you or any of your officers have any contact with the State Procurement Board (SPB) over the fertilizer issue?
3. If you had such contact, can you characterize it?
4. When and how the decision made to import fertilizer?
5. Who (respective officials and institutions) were involved in the decision to import the fertilizer?
6. What were the total foreign currency requirements for the 3 local fertilizer companies for them to recover their production capacity?
7. How many tonnes would have been produced by the local fertilizer companies if there is adequate foreign currency?
8. Was the fertilizer tender publicly floated? By who, where and when? When did it close?
9. What were the product specifications?
10. How many suppliers tendered to supply? What are their names?
11. How many suppliers won the tender and at how much? What are their names? Who was in the selection panel?
12. Can you provide a half page profile of each of the suppliers who won the tender? (Who are the shareholders, directors and managers for your company? How long have you been in business?Who else have they done business with at this magnitude?)
13. Are the suppliers who won the tender manufacturers or retailers/agricultural commodity brokers?
14. If they are manufacturers, where are their plants located? If you are an agricultural product commodity broker, where did you procure the fertilizer from?
15. Who was and is the contact person for Zimbabwe in this deal?
16. Who structured the finance for Zimbabwe and for how many tonnes? What were the terms? What was the role of Nedbank and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)?
17. How and when were the suppliers paid? What was the price per tonne? How much has been paid so far and for how many tonnes?
18. Any other information you may find useful to a citizen of Zimbabwe ?
    
    Looking forward to your timeously response.