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THE Government has named and blacklisted nineteen companies that have been identified by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to be involved in unlawful conduct of channeling funds to the illegal foreign exchange market.

This comes as Government has noted with great concern that some suppliers who supply goods and services to Government institutions are channeling the funds they receive to the illegal foreign exchange market, thereby contributing to exchange rate and price instability.

Government has had to put in place a number of measures to curb this form of abuse of manipulating the exchange rate, with blacking listing of the companies one of the measures.

In a statement on Wednesday, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube said in an endeavor to maintain sanity in the foreign currency market and to curb inflation, Government was left with no other option than to blacklist the 19 companies.

“It has been observed that some contractors after passing through the Value for Money process and having received their payment from Government still tend to siphon their proceeds into the parallel market thereby causing domestic inflationary pressures.

“In this regard, this statement today is to give an update on findings from the work conducted by the FIU on monitoring payments made to Government suppliers as well as measures to deal with non-compliant contractors with a view to plug parallel market dealing. A total of 19 companies have been identified by the FIU to be involved in this unlawful conduct,” said Prof Ncube.

The companies that were named were Nariox(Pvt)Ltd, New Age Marketers(Pvt )Ltd, Pepwit Investments (Pvt) Ltd, Tirumi Investments (Pvt) Ltd Mwendo Africa (Pvt) Ltd and Alg World Investments (Pvt) Ltd.

Among them were also Lobmer Investments (Pvt) Ltd, Nisbank Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd, Sailgroom Enterprises, Wayvar Investments, Poweride Safaris, Azelion Energy (Pvt) Ltd and Blackdeck (Pvt) Ltd.

The list included Paza Buster (Pvt) Ltd, Redan Coupon (Pvt) Ltd, The Best Car Rental, The Legacy Car Rental, Josam Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd and Construction Warehouse (Pvt) Ltd.

“The FIU has noted that upon receiving their payments, the companies would engage in spontaneous illegal foreign currency transactions through buying foreign currency from individuals and entities.

“It was also noted that some of the companies would engage in transactions which are not related to their line of business. Some would also purchase fast moving consumer goods from various manufacturers and the goods would then be sold exclusively in foreign currency,” added the Minister.

He said Government was left with no other option than to blacklist the mentioned companies and the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) will be advised accordingly, to blacklist these entities from doing business with Government.

Prof Ncube said the Government remains committed to maintaining macro- economic stability and the elimination of harmful and destabilizing arbitrage conditions that have pervaded the economy at the expense of the generality of citizens.

-@Sundaynews