Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit Mirirai Chiremba appeared in court on allegations of criminal abuse of duty.
Chiremba allegedly raised the daily withdrawal limit of Suzan General Trading, a company that deals in gold without doing due diligence. Chiremba was released on $6000 bail when he appeared before Harare magistrate Rumbidzai Mugwagwa. He was ordered to submit title deeds of his place of residence as surety and report to police three times a week as well as not to interfere with witnesses. He was remanded to January 10.
The State alleges on October 13 2017, Suzan General Trading opened an NMB account at 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 2017, 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 of the application on November 3. On February 23 2018, 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 Simon Tembo contacted Chiremba who confirmed the unprocessed approval.
More: Mail and Telegraph
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