Manzungu elected Comesa finance committee chair

CONSTRUCTION expert and businessman Dr Tinashe Manzungu has been elected chairperson of the Common Market for East and South Africa (Comesa) Business Council (CBC)’s finance risk and audit committee.

Dr Manzungu has for more than a decade, invested in real estate, health insurance and financial services.

He is a major shareholder and board chair of various companies including Zimbuild and Clientsure Group. He also sits on other boards such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Staff College and the Zimbabwe Building Contractors Association as vice-president.

He is a former council member of the Midlands State University.

The CBC remains committed to driving industrialisation and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) development in the Comesa region and beyond.

By fostering collaboration and sharing best practices, CBC aims to contribute to Africa’s economic transformation and sustainable development.

Dr Manzungu said the CBC had its 11th board meeting on April 29 in Zambia where they discussed issues about the socio-economic development of the 21-Comesa member states.

“Part of the discussions were on the liberalisation of trade in Comesa through the involvement of an inclusive digital system that aims at promoting inter African trade through a digital payment platform that we are launching in November,” he said.

“The discussions were centred on critical aspects that will shape the platform’s functionality, including forex providers, settlement models, technical specifications and governance frameworks.”

Dr Manzungu said on Tuesday, the CBC held its annual general meeting and new executive members were elected.

“The new president of CBC is now Mr James Mwanza from Malawi and I was elected to chair the finance risk and audit committee. I will be representing the Sadc region and the board has nine member states,” he said.

Dr Manzungu said the first and second vice-presidents will be from Kenya and Egypt respectively.

CBC is implementing a Digital Financial Inclusion (DFI) programme that supports the design, development and deployment of an integrated regional digital retail payment scheme that is low-cost, interoperable, fraud-resistant and serving the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).