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Richard Muponde-Zimpapers Politics Hub

THE Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), an arm of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), is adequately equipped with personnel and hardware to deal with financial crimes following the recruitment of manpower with an array of specialised skills, including expertise in information technology (IT).

RBZ Governor, Dr John Mushayavanhu, early this month unleashed the FIU working together with other security agencies on illegal money changers and businesses flouting exchange control regulations to sabotage the newly-introduced Zimbabwe Gold currency (ZiG).

Responding to questions by legislators in Parliament last week, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said the FIU will be allocated more resources to ratchet up the fight against illegal money-changers and sabotaging of the local currency.

In an interview with the Zimpapers Politics Hub, the FIU director-general, Mr Oliver Chiperesa, said the unit was sufficiently resourced for the war against saboteurs, but was not at liberty to disclose the number of personnel for security reasons.

“In terms of giving you actual numbers of the people I have in the FIU, it’s something that I would not be comfortable sharing with the market. 

“It’s like a country at war or an army at war, then giving the enemy details of how many soldiers and how many weapons it has,” Mr Chiperesa said.

“It may not be strategic; so I can’t tell you the actual numbers, but I can tell you we are sufficiently resourced in terms of the numbers. In January 2022, we did a recruitment process where we effectively doubled our numbers. So we just didn’t increase numbers, but we also increased the diversity of skills that we have within the FIU.”

He said the unit was beefed up during recruitment in areas of IT and forensic audit to fight financial crimes.

“And so in terms of numbers and in terms of diversity of skills, we are well resourced. Both the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance and Investment Promotion have always supplied any resources that we require in order to effectively carry out our functions.

“They’ve always been able to avail those. And so not just in terms of personnel and skills, but also in terms of IT tools that are used to analyse transactions,” Mr Chiperesa said.

The FIU boss said the bulk of their work is carried out in the office as it involves analysing huge volumes of transactions accessed from financial institutions.

“We analyse those transactions to discern trends, patterns, suspicious activities, something that you can’t do manually. So we have various IT tools, analytical tools that we use to analyse such transactions. So at the moment we are adequately resourced,” he said.

“Annually or periodically as the situation requires, we always review. We always get out a review at the end of each year to see whether we will be fully equipped for the following year. 

“We also have a strategic plan that guides us in terms of what we want to achieve over a five year period and whether we have the resources. 

“So the resources that we have to achieve our current strategic plan are quite there and we have no complaints at all in terms of resources. The central bank, like I said, and the Ministry of Finance have always been supportive in that                                                                regard.”

Mr Chiperesa said the FIU is partnering other agencies at district level including the police.

“So what we do is we have teams that go out as and when it’s necessary, to trouble spots, either it’s the FIU alone or has joined FIU police teams or in partnership with other relevant agencies”.

Since the introduction of ZiG, police have so far arrested 220 illegal money-changers in a blitz that has also seen the FIU freezing over 90 bank accounts.