(LUSAKATIMES) President MIchael Sata sets ZANACO as the next target

President MIchael Sata sets ZANACO as the next target
TIME PUBLISHED - Saturday, January 28, 2012, 4:38 pm

PRESIDENT Michael Sata has directed Minister of Justice Sebastian Zulu to immediately probe the sale of the Zambia National Commercial (Zanaco) Bank to establish whether procedure was followed when Dutch bankers Rabo acquired a 49 percent stake in the institution in 2007.

The probe comes days after Government reversed the sale of telecom’s company, Zamtel, whose controversial 75 percent stake belonged to Libya’s LAPGreen but has now been placed in government hands.

The Zulu-led probe team, which will also hold public meetings starting February 1 – according to a notice published – will officially try “to determine how the sale of Zanaco was conducted and to establish whether privatisation requirements were met”.

Chana Musakanya, the bank spokesperson in an emailed statement yesterday, said “Zanaco will co-operate fully with the Commission, and has been doing so upon request. We look forward to the review of the privatisation process of Zanaco, which was extensive and took place over a period of many years.”

Government has also assured – through chief government spokesman Fackson Shamenda – that business will not get hurt during and after the probe.

Mr Shamenda said: “This is a routine check into the sale of the bank as the Government attempts to normalise some old parastatal transactions. I would like to assure both shareholders and depositors that everything is under control and no-one is bound to be hurt.”

Mr Shamenda said the exercise will extend beyond the Euro-money Award recipient of 2011 to other parastatals, in a bid to ensure that the laws of the country were followed during the transactions.
Zanaco has the largest branch network countrywide, with more than 60 branches to its credit and it also has a district representation through a partnership with Zampost, making it the largest bank by representation in Zambia, according to information on its website.

It employs more than 1, 300 employees and is also the most capitalised bank in the country, according to management, but this information has not been verified with the central bank, which keeps such records, especially after capitalisation numbers for both local and foreign banks were recently hiked by BoZ.

President Sata said during the campaign period for last year’s elections that he would investigate some transactions that occurred while he was opposition leader to establish that they were done above board.

Zanaco is among the top five banks in Zambia out of a total of 18 registered commercial banks.

[Zambia Daily Mail]