RBZ director arrested for abuse of office

Published: 07 December 2018

Suspended Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) director for Financial Intelligence Unit, Mirirai Chiremba, yesterday appeared in court for criminal abuse of duty for allegedly raising the withdrawal limit of a company without following procedure.

Harare magistrate, Ms Rumbidzai Mugwagwa, remanded Chiremba out of custody to January 10 on $6 000 bail.

Chiremba's other bail conditions include surrendering his passport, reporting three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to CID CCD, not to interfere with witnesses from NMB bank and the RBZ and to surrender the title deeds to his house in New Marlborough, Harare.

Allegations are that on October 13, last year, Suzan General Trading opened an NMB account at the Borrowdale Branch which was meant to facilitate payments by Fidelity Printers and Refiners for gold delivered by Suzan.

At the time, the corporate withdrawal limit was $10 000 per day. On October 27, Suzan through one of its signatories, Shah Saumilkumar filed an application to NMB requesting for the withdrawal limit to be raised to $30 000. NMB carried out reviews of the application before transferring it to the RBZ financial unit for processing. Chiremba approved the application on November 3.

On February 23, Suzan successfully applied for their daily limit to be increased to US$95 000 due to business expansion.

Suzan tendered another application for the limit to be raised to US $195 000 on August 3 which Chiremba allegedly approved before it was processed by the RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit. Upon realisation, NMB banking manager Mr Simon Tembo contacted Chiremba who allegedly confirmed the approval. This was an unlawful act.
- chronicle

Tags: RBZ,