Tapiwanashe Mangwiro
A red flag has been raised over the conduct of a senior banker at state linked bank CBZ Holdings who has been accused of fraud and fuelling the illegal money market.
According to investigations done by the Financial Intelligence Unit indicate that at least 30% of complaints to the CBZ bank are fraud related, with E-banking division being the epicenter.
Sources within the unit said Emmanuel Tapera, a senior staffer in the E-Banking department is said to be the core of fraudulent activities that are said to be fuelling financial instability.
Sources said ecocash bulk payments are funded through E-Banking using the Econet MMT account which is currently held by three banks CBZ, Steward bank and Stanbic bank.
A report by the FIU indicated that Tapera was involved in dealing siphoning of public funds to his accounts and return the cash days after.
Sources said Tapera would withhold funds from corporates which are meant to fund commercial transactions and divert the same to his accounts.
“He is withholding funds that would have been meant to fund commercial transactions and takes that money to his personal projects. By the time he authorises the funds, it would have lost its value. In the process, he benefits alone while jeopardizing the economy,” said a source.
A Cassava client claimed had no bank account so Ecocash bulk payment was the only easiest way to get an electronic wallet to pay his suppliers.
“They have their black market dealers whom they fund first. Those dealers get millions of rtgs dollars at once. Once funded the dealers push the rates on the alternative black market and then the bank (CBZ) holds processing or funding other people’s cash who had sent their Proof of Payments after 3 to 4 days they then fund when the rtgs is now useless”
An FIU report stated that from their interactions with money dealers, one of them named (musondosi) “uyu Emmanuel Tapera uyu ane kachitsotsi ndiye manager anoshandisa mari dzedu achipa marunner ake wotenga mari odzokera kumabuyer wonotengesa mari iya at a higher rate odya profit nemari dzedu, anonetsa anongoisa mari ka1 mumarket nedze last week apedza kudzishandisa hake. Manje hamushandike nekuti most players wemugame anenge ane millions of rtgs except vanhu vake vaanenge atoita deal navo kare”.
Attempts to get a comment from Tapera were fruitless while his boss named Deshe was also not available.
A staffer at Cassava said, “we only instruct the bank to fund the Ecocash wallets, immediately after the clients money reflects In our MMT account however it is the bank that delays funding them for unknown reasons, stream of complaints from clients who have been victims of this and it seems the end of this trend is nowhere in sight, we have tried to get in touch with the bank’s division however they just say to us what they say to our clients so we do not have any position on this claim by clients of fraud by the bank”
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