By A Correspondent- Parliament yesterday grilled Bankers’ Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ) president Webster Rusere over a circular which was recently leaked on social media by one of their members announcing that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will control withdrawal of foreign currency from people’s nostro accounts.

THE DEVELOPMENT COMES AS THE RESERVE BANK OF ZIMBABWE (RBZ) SAYS WE ARE ONLY CONTROLLING COMPANIES’ FOREX ACCOUNTS, NOT PEOPLE’S – ARE THEY TELLING THE TRUTH? HERE IS THE EVIDENCE.

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The below is a simple extrapolation (using simple day to day English) from the leaked RBZ memo which was debated in the parliamentary portfolio committee responsible, yesterday (see copies here).

1. Clear evidence RBZ is raiding people’s bank accounts m, not companies as claimed by @ReserveBankZIM … – pic.twitter.com/4eWMuyY5hL— ZimEye (@ZimEye) October 8, 2019

1. Who is the account holder referred to in bullet point number 3, the company or the employee? This holder’s account has already been raided by the Central Bank.
2. The accounts talked about in bullet point 4 are those of employees and not the employer.
3. Bullet 5 clearly refers to employees bank account saying this is an account that has been credited with a salary, and that after a 30 day period the forex funds will be liquidated *that is – converted into Zim dollars.
4. Bullet 6 clearly refers to all bank accounts employer and employer that unutilised funds will be compulsory liquidated after 30 days.
5. Bullet point 7 is an instruction to banks to ensure compliance.

Appearing before the Felix Mhona-led Parliamentary Portifolio Committee on Budget and Finance to speak on the 2020 budget proposals, Rusere said:

“This circular that found itself on social media was an internal circular for a bank and it was commenting on approval for certain requests made by some companies, and it only referred to foreign currencies funded by export proceeds and does not relate to free funds.

This was an internal circular meant to guide on some conditions of approval, but unfortunately people chose to read one line which talked of disposal of those foreign currency assets. It does not relate to free funds.”

Mhona however said the internal memo had caused a lot of panic among nostro account-holders.

Last week, the leaked internal memo from a commercial bank revealed that the RBZ had instructed banks that Zimbabweans employed by exporting companies and who earn their salaries in foreign currency will now have their money converted into local currency, or only withdraw in forex after applying and getting approval from the central bank.