Zimbabwe Morning Post has reported that the ruling party Zanu PF’s retired ministers who were permanently employed at the party’s headquarters have taken over the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA)’s mandate of promoting and facilitating both foreign direct investment and local investment.
The publication further reports that investors are firstly sent to the ZANU PF headquarters to discuss their business interests before they go to ZIA. Zimbabwe Morning Post informant said:
The top brass that was deployed to run Zanu PF daily is the one that has taken over ZIA’s role and is demanding huge kickbacks from investors as facilitation fees.
Can you imagine the president is saying Zimbabwe is open for business yet there are tycoons at the HQ demanding that every investor sees them first before making any commitment?
It’s quite clear these people are killing the investment authority’s mandate and no investor wants to put their money anymore in the country.
It is reported that these ZANU PF bigwigs would take the investors directly to the permanent secretary of the relevant ministry without going to ZIA once the facilitation fees have been paid.
These reports come after Zimbabwe lost a billion-dollar investment from Dangote after Grace Mugabe’ team demanded kickbacks from him in 2015. Last week, president Mnangagwa bemoaned the corruption and bureaucracy in the country which is scaring away investors. He said:
I am also informed that many investors go back home disappointed, after being moved from office to office, people to people; that should stop.
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