New boards

Herald Reporter
Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa has announced new boards for the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and Sovereign Wealth Fund. Mrs Willia Bonyongwe will chair the Zimra board while Dr Kombo Moyana will chair the Sovereign Wealth Fund board.

Both boards have three year tenures.

Mrs Bonyongwe and Dr Moyana will be deputised by Mr Percy Toriro and Ms Vimbayi Nyemba respectively.

Mrs Bonyongwe takes over from prominent lawyer Mr Stanford Moyo.

According to the Government Gazette published on Friday, the other members of the 10 member Zimra board include the Secretary for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Willard Manungo, Zimra commissioner-general Mr Gershem Pasi, Mrs Nompumelelo Mellyora Abu-Basuthu, Mrs Betty Katiyo, Mr Nation Madongorere, Mr Moffat Nyoni, Mrs Sarudzai Njerere and Mr Arnold Chidhakwa.

The tenure of the old board expired last year.

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority was established on January 19, 2001 as a successor organisation to the then Department of Taxes and the Department of Customs and Excise following the promulgation of the Revenue Authority Act on February 11, 2000.

The Commissioner General, Mr Pasi, was appointed to the helm of the revenue collector on May 1, 2001 and ZIMRA became fully functional on September 1, 2001.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund boards include businessman Mr Nicholas Vingirayi, former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Deputy Governor Mr Nicholas Ncube and Zimtrade chief executive Ms Sithembile Pilime.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund is expected to create wealth for future generations.

The Government has already gazetted the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill meant to secure and prove framework for investment of surplus revenue inflows to cater for the economic needs of future generations.

Sovereign wealth funds are generally defined as special investment funds created and owned by governments to hold foreign assets for long-term purposes.

But such definition of SWFs excludes foreign currency reserve assets held by monetary authorities only for the traditional balance of payments or monetary policy purposes, operations of state-owned enterprises, Government-employee pension funds, assets managed for the benefit of individuals.

SWFs are commonly established from balance of payments surpluses, official foreign currency operations, the proceeds of privatizations, fiscal surpluses, receipts from commodity exports and revenues from mineral rents.

SWFs may be fiscal stabilisation funds set up by countries rich in natural resources to insulate the budget and economy from volatile commodity prices or fiscal savings funds are intended to share wealth across generations.

They may also take the form of reserve investment corporations, which are funds established as a separate entity either to reduce the negative cost-of-carry of holding reserves or to pursue investment policies for returns.

Others are pension-reserve funds that have identified pension and/or contingent-type liabilities on governments’ balance sheets or development funds to fund priority socioeconomic projects such as infrastructure.