Tendai Biti, a former Finance and Economic Development Minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU) has claimed that US$3.5 billion has been siphoned from the public sector to cartels through the RBZ foreign currency system.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) introduced the Foreign Exchange Auction Trading System on 23 June 2020 in a bid to bring transparency and efficiency to the trading of foreign currency in the economy.
The Zimbabwean dollar was losing value against the United States Dollar (USD) and authorities argued that the parallel market, where businesses got most of their forex, was worsening the situation.
The total cumulative foreign exchange auction allotments as of August 2022, since the inception of the Foreign Exchange Auction System, stand at US$3 521 882 028, according to the RBZ.
Biti, a vice president in the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change led by Nelson Chamisa believes the money went to cartels. He said in Twitter posts seen by Pindula News:
From day one we argued that Foreign Exchange Auction system was a fraud facilitating transfer of wealth from public coffers to cartelsUS$ 3.5 b has been syphoned from public sector to cartels via the auction system from its inception. But economy has nothing to show for this
The massive auction fraud funded by the public requires a forensic value-for-money audit. Who got what, for what purpose, was there delivery or performance? Such an audit will expose the extractive predatory status quo of the Central Bank & why it must be shut down.
The RBZ periodically publishes a list of beneficiaries of the auction system.
RBZ reports suggest that the bulk of the auction allotments was for payment for raw materials followed by machinery and equipment.
Other things paid for include consumables, retail and distribution, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, packaging, and fuel, electricity and gas