RBZ boss’ case deferred

Prosper Dembedza and Geraldine Zaranyika
Suspended Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Financial Intelligence Unit director Mirirai Chiremba’s application for refusal of further remand was yesterday rolled over to Thursday after his lawyer, Mr Addington Chinake, said the State was not ready to respond.

Chiremba is facing charges of criminal abuse of duty and is on $6 000 bail. His other bail conditions include surrendering his passport, reporting three times a week — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — to the Criminal Investigations Department, not to interfere with witnesses from NMB Bank and the RBZ, and to surrender title deeds to his house in New Marlborough, Harare.

Mr Chinake said the State was supposed to respond to the application last week, but failed to do so.

Harare provincial magistrate Mrs Vongai Muchuchuti-Guwuriro deferred the matter to Thursday for the State to respond to the application.

Allegations are that on October 13, 2017, Suzan General Trading opened an NMB account at the Borrowdale b ranch which was meant to facilitate payments by Fidelity Printers and Refiners for gold delivered by the company. At the time, the corporate withdrawal limit was $10 000 per day.

On October 27, the same year, Suzan, through one of its signatories, Shah Saumilkumar, submitted an application to NMB requesting for its withdrawal limit to be raised to $30 000.

The bank reviewed the application before transferring it to the RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit for processing.

Chiremba approved the application on November 3.On February 23, 2018, Suzan again applied for their daily limit to be increased to $95 000 due to business expansion and Chiremba allegedly approved the request before it was processed by the RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit.