Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti says Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube owes the nation an explanation over US$144 million loan allocated by treasury for infrastructure projects including the Mbudzi interchange.
Posting on Twitter, Biti questioned why US$88 million loan was secured from Fossil Mine a company that was given the contract to construct the Mbudzi interchange.
“The Minister of Finance Professor @MthuliNcube owes the country a huge explanation. Having laid documents in Parliament showing that US$144 m was allocated to infrastructure projects including the Mbudzi by pass it behoves one why a loan was then secured from a conflicted party
“Since 2014, with Chinamasa’s excessive Treasury Bills, the Ministry of Finance has been at the epicenter of parallel budgeting and excessive deficits outside Parliamentary approval. The Financial Adjustment Bill 2019 seeks condonation of US$10.6 b spend outside Parliament between 2015 and 2017
“The 2020 Financial Adjustment Bill seeks condonation of ZW$106 b spend without Parliament approval between 2018 and 2019. This is in addition to US$2.7 b,…US$3.5 b , US6.8 b for 2017 to 2019 picked up by the Auditor General .The Ministry of Finance has had more qualified accounts than any other Ministry,” said Biti
He said the Finance Minister will be remembered with bitterness over his actions.
“The unallocated Reserve has become an instrument of arbitrage, a tool to loot public coffers outside parliamentary scrutiny. No wonder the Auditor General was forced to scrap mention of same in her 2020 audits. The MOF is an oversight ministry and it behoves the mind when the Gate Keeper becomes the Gate Crasher .History will judge Mthuli Ncube harshly. It’s bad enough to be a vacuous clueless neoliberal but it’s another thing to be the principal pawn and driver of State Capture and looting.” he said
