JUST IN: Senior Government officials stole US$7 billion and bought properties outside Zimbabwe

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) says it has identified over US$7 billion in cash and properties stashed outside the country by former and current senior Government officials and captains of industry.This comes as ZACC intensifies efforts to recover ill-gotten wealth hidden in foreign lands.According to ZACC, some of the properties and cash were in Switzerland, London, the United States of America, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mauritius and Spain, among other countries.In an interview on the sidelines of a three-day workshop on asset recovery being held in Harare yesterday, ZACC chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo said more accurate investigations were now underway.“Informally, we have now identified over US$7 billion worth of property and cash all over the world which were siphoned by our former leaders, current leaders, private sector and individuals.So this information we only got informally, so now we have to formalise the process so that we start the processes of repatriating the monies back home.

“So the purpose of this training is to equip our officers with the techniques of repatriation of stolen funds.This workshop is sponsored by the World Bank and UNODC and its from Star, which is Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative.So they are going to teach us on the various jurisdictions, how we can interact with those various jurisdictions, who we can engage and who we can actually work with in order to ensure that all those monies are repatriated back to Zimbabwe for the benefit of Zimbabweans,” she said.The workshop is being sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).She assured the nation that ZACC would follow through every normal procedure to ensure that stolen money is recovered.“When I took Oath of office, I told Zimbabweans that I am really geared to recover most of the stolen money as much as I can go, as far as I can go, I am willing to go in order to ensure that we get back whatever was stolen from the country.”.Mr Vision Moyo of Mapaya and Partners said although there were chances of repatriating the money, ZACC was likely to face a few challenges, including international cooperation in investigations and extradition matters, capacity building and bilateral relations with the countries concerned.“There are however, some countries that have managed to do this and these include Nigeria, Peru and the Philippines, among others.Philippines did the same process successfully and a substantial amount of money was repatriated back to them,” he said.The workshop scheduled to end tomorrow is being attended by officers from ZACC, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), Financial Intelligence Unit, Immigration Department and the Special Anti-Corruption Unit.Turning to the law, Justice Matanda-Moyo said there was need for the legislators to be proactive.“For example in Britain they have enacted the Unexplained Wealth Orders Act and our counterpart organisation in London can actually call upon persons, the British and even those foreigners to explain on the properties that they have in the UK.So once that power is taken away from ourselves, it means we can no longer interact with the other agencies in order to make use of that particular Act,” Justice Matanda-Moyo said.BAD NEWS: Mnangagwa's govt hikes maize producer price.THE Government has reviewed the maize producer price to ZWL$6 958 per tonne for the 2019-2020 marketing season.This was revealed by the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services during the fourth post-cabinet briefing for 2020 in Harare this Wednesday afternoon.The move is expected to encourage deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) for the replenishment of the strategic grain reserve.Traditional grains will be pegged at ZWL$7 260 per metric tonne.Traditional grains include Sorghum, Millet and Rapoko.Senator Mutsvangwa highlighted that there is a need to make use of the term traditional grains as the term “small grains” had colonial connotations.“Traditional grains are what is being commonly referred to by the media as small grains which in essence is a term inherited from the colonial era when traditional grains had no significant role to play in the agricultural economy.Therefore the term ‘small grains’ should be discontinued and discouraged as we begin to promote traditional grains in the face of climate change and health challenges related to consumption of maize meal,” said the minister.

Minister Mutsvangwa also revealed that cabinet approved the maize, wheat and soya bean production recovery plan which is an extract of the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy that seeks to achieve over US$8 billion gross agriculture production value by 2023.The recovery plan is anchored on availing financial services to highly productive contract farmers, commodity value chain financing, climate proofed Presidential Input Support Scheme, pre-planting producer price announcement, creation of a lowveld maize belt, speeding up of irrigation development, capacitation of extension services delivery programme, innovation and modernisation of agriculture.“Cabinet acknowledged that the Maize, Wheat and Soyabean Recovery Plan, if meticulously implemented, has the potential to reverse the dependence on imports for these crops as well as to mitigate the financial burden on Treasury and ultimately put the country on a trajectory to attain Vision 2030,” said Senator Mutsvangwa.In October last year, the government increased the producer prices for maize and traditional grains namely sorghum, millet and rapoko to $4 000 up from $2 100.