Biti’s big lie

In a report released on September 11, 2020, Fitch said in terms of loans to countries, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia account for 41% of the bank’s loans. Zimbabwe does not feature on Fitch’s list of countries with the largest loans.

Fitch also said Afreximbank’s concentration risk – the risk of lending too much to one particular customer – is rated “low”. The bank’s five largest exposures accounted for 26% of the bank’s total portfolio at the end of 2019.

Moody’s, another rating agency, issued its own report on July 14, 2020.

According to Moody’s, Afreximbank’s loan portfolio’s concentration levels in terms of Top 10 exposures, by geography and sector, are “in the medium range” compared with other similar banks. The Top 10 receivers of Afrex loans account for less than 50% of the bank’s total loans, Moody’s says.

Afreximank has emerged as a leading source of loans for Zimbabwe, which has been frozen out of international capital markets for more than two decades.

Although Afreximbank also extends credit lines to private Zimbabwean companies, the bulk of its lending to the country goes to the government through the central bank.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s total foreign debt stood at nearly US$4,8 billion in July 2020, according to its latest available monthly economic report.

The central bank does not provide details of individual sources of the debt, although RBZ governor John Mangudya told Parliament in March 2019 that Zimbabwe had borrowed US$985 million from African lenders, including US$641 million from Afreximbank in 2018.

While Afreximbank has emerged as a leading lender to Zimbabwe, Biti’s claim that the continental bank has lent “more than half of its balance sheet” to the country is false.

The bank’s greatest exposure is to West Africa, which still accounts for less than half of Afreximbank’s loan book.

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