More questions raised over Mutapa Investment Fund

PARLIAMENT plans to hold a meeting with the Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF) board of directors and its incumbent chief executive officers (CEO) and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya to find answers on the fund’s integrity and operations.

Late last year President Emmerson Mnangagwa renamed the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), established in 2015 through an Act of Parliament, to MIF through two Statutory Instruments.

Speaking at the Accountability Lab Zimbabwe’s seminar on the MIF, Parliament of Zimbabwe Public Accounts Committee representative, Edwin Mushoriwa said the MIF can be a huge looting platform for bigwigs as most of the legislators and citizens do not fully understand the mechanics of the fund.

“The Fund (SWF) was operated informally as they did not have a board all this while; hence nobody completely knew how it operated because of that. Also there were no tracks of who used the money. Now the SWF’s name was changed to MIF, but now Mr Mangudya who was RBZ’s governor has been appointed as the Fund’s CEO. This is now hard as we already have history of how other Funds like this one ended up being like. We as the parliament hope that MIF leadership will make things better,” Mushoriwa said.

Ever SWE was renamed concern has been raised of high chances of it being mismanaged due to lack of transparency and accountability because, for example the 22 State entities listed under the MIF can freely transfer funds in and out of the country.

The 22 entities are Defold Mine, Zupco, Kuvimba Mining House, Silo Investments, and the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the Cold Storage Commission, PetroTrade, POSB, NetOne, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, TelOne, Arda Seeds, Zimbabwe Power Company, PowerTel, Allied Timbers, Telecel Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, Industrial Development Corporation, Cottco, AFC Limited and Hwange Colliery Company.