Carte Blanche with Perry Perry Munzwembiri

There is a current shortage of ZWL liquidity in the market, and government is claiming a victory in its war against inflation and runaway exchange rates. Is this victory real, and is it sustainable?

With long winding fuel queues becoming common in Zimbabwe, as foreign currency shortages deepened, Robert Mugabe stitched a $360 million fuel supply deal with Libya. This deal was not for nothing however, as Gaddafi pounced on Mugabe’s desperation to accumulate assets in Zimbabwe.

Unlike most global crises, the Russia-Ukraine war isn’t one of those ‘who cares’ type of events. Instead, it has very real and far reaching implications for Zimbabwe.

“Baccossi”, “Aspef”, “Plarp” are just a few of the acronyms coined by Gideon Gono to describe his now infamous quasi-fiscal activities during his time as RBZ governor. Gono oversaw a period of massive inflation, looting of state resources and a ballooning of the central bank’s debt. This episode looks at this dark period, and some of Gono’s most prominent quasi fiscal interventions.

Royal Bank Zimbabwe was on a firm growth trajectory, until one day when everything went awry and the Directors surrendered their banking license. The founder Jeff Mzwimbi had been a stalwart in Corporate Zimbabwe, helping Strive Masiyiwa set up Econet Zimbabwe. Mzwimbi was also one of the first blacks to break into the heavily white dominated merchant banking industry in Zimbabwe. Here is his story.

A closer look into Zimbabwe’s first ever black Rhodes scholar, and former CEO of NMB Bank and MBCA Bank. David Hatendi loved life and lived a very eventful life filled with success, failure, humour. David presided over NMB Bank during the tumultuous mid-2000s banking crisis era, eventually stepping down following a fraud scandal at the bank.