Published: 28 September 2017

IT is possible to curb the current financial cash sabotage menace bedeviling our economy. Whilst the market is facing unpredictability, reminding the innocent citizens of the economic crisis of the late 2000s is not the way. We cannot sit back and blame Government alone as the financial market is becoming a free for all scenario.

In my view there are three culprits in this economic landscape and these include the banking sector, manufactures and some traders.

These have worked in cahoots when it comes to blaming the Government for failing to manage the economy yet they complain of shortages of US$ to import essential raw materials and goods for internal production. After adoption of the multiple currency system in 2009, the same entities have made millions of dollars by inflating imported products and stacking profits outside the country through externalisation.

What then is the solution?
Government has to nip this problem as soon as possible by dealing with economic saboteurs who are mopping all the available foreign currency in the market and exporting or illegally externalising it to foreign accounts. By the time we hold next year's elections, the ability to solve this problem would be a measure of failure or success of the sitting Government. The Central Bank has to immediately implement in a simple system that reconciles all the funds allocated to the local banks and monitor bank to bank transactions to detect illicit withdrawals that end up in the black market.

There is a lot of actionable intelligence information left in the financial transactions audit trails. The Central Bank needs to implement a revenue assurance system that links banks, retailers and manufactures and importers and exporters of goods and services to sniff out any illicit financial indiscipline that is deliberately tailored to sabotage our country.

These "economic terrorists" boast of external fat accounts and lavish lifestyles at the expense of innocent Zimbabweans. Whilst they commit these crimes, ignorantly and unknowingly, they leave behind financial audit trails. It is time Government took a step further to expose these culprits and bring our monies back into our economy.

The Central Bank will be able to reconcile all these transactions with the touch of a button and will detect the illicit financial transactions and bring the culprits to book. These mobile currency street vendors work for some of these financial institutions and businesses to capitalise on the desperation of the citizens.

With available technologies in the financial suspicious transactions monitoring, which can easily be availed to the Central Bank, it's a matter of days to expose these culprits and bring back confidence in our Government than blaming everything that happens to the executive yet we can see who are the economic saboteurs. It is practically impossible for banks not to have cash, when cash is in abundance at our borders and bus ranks for cross border busses.

Zimbabweans have become their own enemies by literally killing their economy by stealing from their own country. It is estimated that Zimbabwe is losing a minimum of $2.5 billion a year to smuggling alone, not counting under invoiced imports. It is critical that an effective border control system be put in place to harness revenue leakages. Obviously any existing system has dismally failed to control our borders, hence the continuation of revenue leakages.

The other question is, why all this financial instability now, when we are about to go for elections? Why the high rate of hard currency mopping from the streets by illegally diverting the bond notes and making them more attractive to someone with the US$.

It's a gimmick to externalise real foreign currency in order to create artificial shortages in the country. Let the banks, industry and retailers explain to Government what they did with all the billions that Government released into the economy in the last five years. They are accountable to all these funds up to the last cent. They have been working through their agents to illegally trade in foreign currency. Banks have literally resigned from their buildings into the streets.

And these so called agents have amassed so much wealth, which Zimra has a task to collect undeclared incomes, by simply auditing their newly acquired wealth. Actionable intelligence financial evidence information is all over. All these suspects left forensic DNA evidence behind in the financial crime scenes of illicit financial transactions of depriving the nation of cash in the economy.

It is time the Central Bank cracked the whip now, not tomorrow. Tools to do so are readily available…The desire of these economic saboteurs is to instil fear in the minds of the electorate reminding them of the late 2000s economic crisis. They are literally doing everything possible to achieve the similar objective by profiteering from nothing but just burning moneys.

For example, a $50 crisp dollar note can easily generate $90 in less than an hour. A client wants to pay for groceries for $50, client number two pleads with client number one to swipe his card and have the $50 cash. Client two rushes to a friend and sells the $50—for $70 Bond note, then the same guy calls another friend who desperately needed cash.

He sells the $70 bond notes cash for $90—wired into his account. Goes back to the first client pays for the $50 groceries and he remains with net $40. This is how illicit our economy has turned into, which is a fertile ground for hyperinflation. No, no, no.

Chris Ndlovu is an ICT specialist on Government Security Monitoring Systems. He has knowledge on Critical Public Infrastructure Protection & Early Warning Financial Crisis Detection Systems.
- chronicle