Herald Reporter
RESERVE bank governor Dr Gideon Gono has dismissed threats that Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank may soon lose their licences saying as the legal authority for banks, he had no plans of doing so.
Responding to an ultimatum issued by Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere that the banks had two weeks to comply with the indigenisation regulations or face closure, Dr Gono said such threats were damaging to the banking sector as witnessed by the panic caused by yesterday's statement.

"The Reserve Bank, which is the legal authority to issue or take away banking licences to operators in the banking industry wishes to advise all stakeholders that it has neither given notice to nor does it have any immediate or foreseeable intention to withdraw operating licences from any registered financial institution under its supervision.
"The position must, however, not be misconstrued to imply that the bank condones or encourages non-compliance with the law by any institution operating under its purview.
"The law of the land is the law and it must be complied with," said Dr Gono.
The Indigenisation Ministry's legal department insisted on Thursday that those firms that failed to submit indigenisation plans within the stipulated time would have their firms taken over by the State.

KASUKUWERE'S ULTIMATUM

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"I will not speak about other sectors of the economy facing similar difficulties as to do so would be a quasi-fiscal misfiring on the part of the governor and we all know how some stakeholders react to the governor's extra-territotial initiatives, however noble."

However, Dr Gono said there were better ways of achieving the same objectives under indigenisation through non-confrontational means and not in a manner that threatened custodians of people's hard earned savings.

On its part, the central bank would deal with non-compliant banks through consultations with beneficiary stakeholders "but not in a manner that smacks of irrational exuberance during these times of necessary soberness".

The central bank was currently seized with stabilising some indigenous-owned financial institutions that were not adequately capitalised.
"To this end, tendencies towards firing harmful verbal economic gunpowder must be minimised by all stakeholders in the interest of the economy and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Board forewarns people playing with economic gunpowder to leave the game to those well-trained in its use and safe custody, lest the unintended will happen, to everyone's future regret," fumed Dr Gono.

In a supplement to the Monetary Policy Statement issued last month, Dr Gono warned that the financial sector needed to be treated with a great deal of circumspection given its sensitive nature.
Anything to the contrary had the potential to harm the nerve centre of the country's economic recovery process.

The global financial crisis, which was also on the recent Sadc Summit's agenda, still engulfed the world of finance hence "any actions on our part which are viewed or misread as precipitous or calamitous to the point of causing regional or country financial sector instability, however justified, will not find favour with governors of central banks in the region, let alone Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe".