Safari Operators Probed
Date: 16 August 2004
Source: The Herald (Harare)
Author: Isdore Guvamombe
Harare
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority are investigating several safari operators who might have swindled the Government of up to US$11 million (about $Z60 billion).
Most of the operators, running hunting concessions throughout the country, allegedly under-declared to Government their foreign currency earnings of the last hunting season, while others allegedly externalised the foreign currency realised.
Out of the expected US$24 million, the safari operators only declared US$13 million and it remains inexplicable where the remaining US$11 million went.
International hunters pay their trophy and hunting fees in foreign currency and the safari operators are required to declare their foreign currency earnings and to pay a 2 percent quota to Government.
In an exclusive interview, National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority chief executive officer Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the net was closing in on the law-breaking operators.
"We have a situation where the previous hunting season earned US$24 million and then suddenly the last hunting season earned only US$13 million yet there was no decline in the hunts and no major changes in the prices of the hunted animals.
"Our question is: what happened to the other US$11 million? So investigations are in progress.
"We are jointly carrying out the investigations with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe," said Dr Mtsambiwa.
It is believed that the tour operators were taking advantage of the authority's lack of expertise in the day-to-day running of hunting concessions.
"As a result, we have embarked on a maiden hunting project at Mugundumu Camp in Matetsi near Victoria Falls, which we are using as a yardstick to measure the operations in private concessions. Now as participants in the actual hunting business, we are able to tell when we are cheated and when we are not," he said.
Safaris are a major foreign currency-spinning venture and each year from May to September, hunters, mainly from Texas in the United States of America, go back home with the much-treasured trophies from their expeditions.
Hunting proceeds are paid in advance to the safari operators, but last year many operators, working in cahoots with white former farmers, devised methods of circumventing laid-down foreign currency declaration procedures.