CHENGETAI ZVAUYA
Fuel mogul, Kuda Tagwirei, will appear before a parliamentary portfolio committee on November 11 to explain how Sakunda Holdings used funds under the Command Agriculture scheme.
Tendai Biti, chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), told the Business Times that his committee had decided to call Tagwirei to appear before the committee as it moves to bring closure to the investigations.
“We have resent an invitation letter to Sakunda Holding inviting its owner Kudakwashe Tagwirei to come to Parliament and they have promised us that Tagwirei will come together with his chief executive officer to the committee,” Biti said, adding that they are central to the probe.
“If we fail to summon Tagwirei and his company Sakunda Holdings, there will be no probe into the Command Agriculture programme to talk about because Sakunda Holdings is a key player in the Command Agriculture as it was paid the huge amounts of money that it has to account for,” said Biti.
Sakunda Holdings was paid US$2 billion for Command Agriculture by the Treasury through Treasury Bills.
Biti said part of the PAC’s agenda has seen them summoning governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe John Magudya and his team and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to explain how they were using public funds and financing projects that are of national interest, including grain procurement and fuel and electricity importation. He said the committee had gathered enough evidence on the Command Agriculture, and monies that had been paid to Sakunda Holdings and that had not been fully accounted for.
“We know what we are doing as a committee. There is no witch hunt in this matter. All we need is transparency with public funds, and as Parliament we are doing our oversight role in this matter,” Biti said.
“There is no politics to talk about in this issue but members want to know what is happening with their funds paid out to private companies to carry national projects,”said Biti.
Biti said the former Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa who was responsible for financing the Command Agriculture project was not going to be held accountable as he had written instructing letters to the Treasury to fund the project.
“Chinamasa acted in a clever manner as a lawyer and he gave instructions to the RBZ to issue Treasury Bills. Chinamasa himself did not sign any TBs but passed the buck to the RBZ, This is why we have been questioning the RBZ and Ministry of Finance officials, who were involved in the transactions,” Biti added.
