JOHANNESBURG
- Zimbabwean
opposition parties have welcomed a call by Zimbabwean President, Emmerson
Mnangagwa for all persons who under Mugabe's rule, externalised money to return
the said monies within three months.
Mnangagwa has set the
amnesty deadline line to February for the return the ill-gotten wealth with the
promise prosecution post deadline.
Former Zimbabwean
President, Robert Mugabe previously revealed that the country had
"lost" an amount of USD $15 billion in diamond mining revenue. The
missing money is believed to have been externalised and squandered by
government officials with the aid of dodgy investors.
According to a report
by Bulawayo24.com, opposition parties have called on the President to leave
"no stone unturned" in accounting for the missing $15 billion worth
of diamonds disappearing from mining claims.
Last year, Zimbabwean reserve bank governor, John Mangudya said that USD $1.8 billion was externalised in 2015 and of that amount, $1.2 was funnled out by corporates
However, in an
interview with the Harare Bureau last week, Presidential Press Secretary Mr
George Charamba said that the Zimbabwean media had failed to comprehend that
former President had used that figure as a metaphor to express the magnitude of
his anger at the opaque nature of operations at the Chiadzwa diamond fields.
“As a matter of fact I
sat in the briefing and I said to the former President, sir, where did you get
the 15 billion figure? His response was 'I just said out of the blue to stress
my point because I was angry’. That’s what he told me and I am prepared to
repeat it on record. It was a metaphor to indicate his outrage,” Charamba said.
Charamba said it is
illogical to assume that US$15 billion could have been siphoned from the
diamond mining sector as the country was yet to produce diamonds of that value
Zimbabwean opposition
parties don't seem to share Charamba's views on the matter and have repeatedly
called for Mnangagwa to launch an investigation into the missing money, calling
for an audit into the country's diamond and mineral revenue.
Source: Business Report Online
No comments:
Post a Comment