Miners top list of culprits as Zimbabweans return $600 million in externalised funds

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa today said nearly $600 million in illegally externalised funds has been returned into the country under a 90-day amnesty and named corporates and individuals that have yet to repay over $800 million in a list dominated by diamond miners.

Mnangagwa’s amnesty expired last month but only $591 million out of an estimated $1.4 billion in funds illegally stashed abroad was returned, he said in a statement, adding that those that did not comply could face prosecution.

The published list showed 1 884 individuals and companies, and firms in the mining, agriculture, manufacturing sectors and cross border freight businesses had the highest amounts spirited abroad.

The struggling African Associated Mines allegedly externalised $62 million while diamond miners, Marange Resources ($54.2 million), Canadile Miners ($31.3 million), Mbada ($14.7 million) and Jinan ($11 million) are on the list.

Government was a 50 percent shareholder in all the diamond miners, which operated in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.

Marange, Mbada and Jinan were among the seven miners shut down in February 2016 for resisting nationalisation while Canadile, a joint venture between Lovemore Kurotwi’s Core Mining and the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation suspended operation in 2010.

Operations at Shabanie and Gaths asbestos mines ground to a halt in 2008, three years after the government seized them from Mutumwa Mawere, under a controversial law that allows the state to take over assets of businesses deemed to be insolvent and incapable of servicing loans and charges owed to state institutions and agencies.

The mines were subsequently placed under Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC). It is not clear from the list when the funds were externalised.

The funds were for export earnings that were kept offshore, payment of imports that never made it into the country and funds stashed in foreign banks.-The Source

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