adminFinance Minister Tendai Biti has said.
The RBZ last week announced that it was disposing some of its shares to streamline its operations to its core functions.
Speaking in the House of Assembly last week, Minister Biti said the disposal of assets by the RBZ had been necessitated by the need to clear the central bank’s debts.
“The law that this august House passed, the RBZ Amendment Bill and became law in March 2010, says that the RBZ with the consent of the minister, is going to dispose of all quasi-fiscal assets.
“When they do that, the proceeds will be appropriated towards the payment of liabilities to the banking sector, that is the statutory reserves.
“What they are doing is in terms of the law that the august ladies and gentlemen in this House passed and became law in March 2010,” Minister Biti said.
He said the RBZ’s quasi-fiscal activities were at some stage 35 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
He said the bank had expanded way beyond its mandate.
“The bank (RBZ) had become an extension of Treasury through various quasi-fiscal activities, supporting the local authorities, support to the farming sector and so forth.
“In the process it acquired a huge portfolio of essentially non-core or quasi-fiscal roles, for instance, housing, mining of which all these things were not permitted by the law.
“Some of the RBZ’s debts include debts that are owed to ordinary people in respect of foreign accounts that were appropriated in 2006 and 2007 and we have set as priority the debts that are owed to banks from statutory reserves,” he said.
Minister Biti added: “The central bank still owes many commercial banks. In fact, 40 percent of commercial banks book is actually book that they are owed by the RBZ and part of this includes statutory reserves and
mirror accounts in respect of expropriated Foreign Currency Accounts.”
Minister Biti was responding to a question from Zvishavane-Runde House of Assembly Member Mr Lawrence Mavima in the House last week on Government policy in relation to disposal of assets by the RBZ which he said was not in compliance or in line with the State Procurement Board regulations.
The proceeds are meant to clear the bank’s liabilities of about US$1,2 billion of which 65 percent is said to have been inherited from the previous administrations.
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