By ETimes
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Dr. John Mangudya has alluded that his institution was attacked and had to put the record straight on allegations posed in an unreleased Al Jazeera documentary.
The Governor said this during a breakfast meeting in Harare as he defended his statement he issued lambasting the yet to be released documentary where individuals interviewed said that he is just a phone call away.
Dr. Mangudya said, “I am the custodian of the financial system of this country, and the allegations in those small snippets we saw are of money laundering and illicit gold trades. Why am I supposed to sleep comfortably and keep quiet when the house is on fire?”
He added that people are underestimating the effect of such accusations as they have implications on the anti – money laundering standing of this country.
Zimbabwe was removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) with effect from March last year, having satisfied the authorities that it is fully compliant in implementing required global anti-money laundering banking standards and that its banks cannot be used by those financing terrorism.
This has made it easier for payments into and out of Zimbabwe, making investment and other flows a lot easier. It also made it easier for correspondent bank relationships since foreign banks now can assume the Zimbabwean payments are legitimate.
The Governor said he has nothing against Al Jazeera, but it is those interviewed by the media house that he has a problem with as they tried to be big when they are not.
“The gold is not sanctioned so why should we try to use illicit funds to buy an unsanctioned commodity. The only sanctions we have are ZIDERA and OFAC and none on our trades,” Dr. Mangudya added.
The breakfast meeting was hosted by the Zimbabwe Economics Society and German-based civic organisation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – Harare