Enough Project







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Dear Supporter,

Today The Sentry launched its second report on Zimbabwe, "Legal Tender? The Role of Sakunda and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in Command Agriculture [ [link removed] ]." The Command Agriculture program was intended to boost agricultural production in Zimbabwe through the provision of inputs such as seed and fertilizer to commercial farmers. However, our investigators uncovered:
* Favorable exchange rates for Zimbabwean Treasury Bills received by companies owned by presidential advisor Kudakwashe Tagwirei.
* Instances of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) effectively printing money for privately owned companies to buy publicly owned mines.
* Red flags for potentially politicized RBZ spending, including payments to the military at the time of Zimbabwe's coup.
* Claims from Zimbabwe's parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the RBZ acted unconstitutionally and circumvented democratic approval of spending and borrowing.
* Allegations from the International Monetary Fund that the RBZ's treatment of Treasury Bills in Zimbabwe bloated the country's money supply and contributed to inflation and the rapid decline in the value of its currency.


The possibly unlawful payments from the RBZ to Tagwirei's companies highlight how Zimbabwe's Command Agriculture program could have been usurped to benefit him and his companies. The Sentry's report includes recommendations-for the government of Zimbabwe, multilateral bodies and donors, and financial institutions-to help prevent the financial support of potentially corrupt networks operating in Zimbabwe and their enablers abroad. Ensuring procurement transparency and allowing Zimbabwean citizens to see how their money is spent will be a crucial first step to doing so.

Thank you for your continued support of our work to dismantle these networks. To read the full report and recommendations, *click here* [ [link removed] ]. You can also read some initial coverage of our report in the Daily Maverick [ [link removed] ], Bloomberg [ [link removed] ], and the Zimbabwe Independent [ [link removed] ].





Sincerely,

John Prendergast
Co-Founder of The Sentry







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