Dear Mr Gideon Gono,

Open Letter to the RBZ Governor, Gideon Gono
      
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) that you head was involved in the procurement of fertilizer from South Africa. Your Novermber 11, 2006 press statement, as available on the RBZ website, did not address pertinent issues. For that reason, answers to the following questions are required:

Are you aware of the State Procurement Policies, Procedures and Regulations in Zimbabwe? Did you or any of your officers have any contact with the State Procurement Board (SPB) over the fertilizer issue? If you had such contact, can you characterize it?

When and how the decision made to import fertilizer?

Who (respective officials and institutions) were involved in the decision to import the fertilizer?

What were the total foreign currency requirements that would have enabled the three local fertilizer companies to recover their production capacity? How many tonnes would have been produced by the local fertilizer companies if there was adequate foreign currency?

Was the fertilizer tender publicly floated? By whom and where and when? When did the tender close?

What were the product specifications?

How many suppliers tendered to supply? What are their names?

How many suppliers won the tender and at how much? What are their names? Who sat on the selection panel?

Can you provide a half page profile of each of the suppliers who won the tender? Who are the shareholders, directors and managers of their companies? How long have they been in business? Who else have they done business with at this magnitude?

Are the suppliers who won the tender manufacturers, retailers or agricultural commodity brokers?

If they are manufacturers, where are their plants located? If they are an agricultural product commodity broker, where did they procure the fertilizer from?

Who was and is the contact person for Zimbabwe in this deal?

Who structured the finance for Zimbabwe and for how many tonnes? What were the terms? What was the role of Nedbank and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)?

How and when were the suppliers paid? What was the price per tonne? How

much has been paid so far and for how many tonnes?

Any other information you may find useful to a citizen of Zimbabwe ?

Looking forward to your timeously response.

Concerned Citizen

Harare 
 
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=28

posted also on www.zimfinalpush.blogspot.com