LONDON (Africa Confidential) - Share transfers can provide a means to export foreign exchange from Zimbabwe, as long as you get permission.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Harare businessman Mohammed I. Mohammed are using a British company to siphon tens of millions of US dollars out of Zimbabwe to buy fuel and for their personal profit.

Gono has helped Mohammed, who runs Remo Investment Brokers in Harare, to move millions of US dollars to Britain through Ravenscourt Corporation, which operates an account at Habib Bank in the City of London. Remo runs Ravenscourt Corporation in Zimbabwe.

Africa Confidential was told the company is registered in London, but there are no records of its operations at Britain’s Companies House. Ravenscourt has won a lucrative permit to import fuel into Zimbabwe, alongside the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM).

Other private companies in Zimbabwe are barred from directly importing fuel and compelled to use NOCZIM under an arrangement which government said was to promote transparency. Ravenscourt is excluded from this arrangement.

In January, Gono said Ravenscourt was providing oil to Zimbabwe under ‘friendly terms’. Last year, Gono helped broker a deal under which Ravenscourt was the exclusive supplier to Total (Zimbabwe) which distributed the oil nationally. Total (Zimbabwe) took over Mobil Oil (Zimbabwe) in December 2005.

Total (Zimbabwe) now controls 45 percent of Zimbabwe’s petroleum business. It has the biggest storage capacity in the country, making Ravenscourt’s agreement one of the most profitable.

“Total (Zimbabwe) had the capacity to import fuel on its own, but there were political considerations to the deal and it was a question of protecting our operations locally,” said a senior Total executive.

Known as one of the biggest foreign currency buyers on Zimbabwe’s parallel market, Mohammed has transferred millions of dollars of Old Mutual shares to Britain from Zimbabwe through Remo. Such transfers (AC Vol 49 No 23) are one of the few remaining ways to export foreign exchange from Zimbabwe but require the permission of Gono.

In the UK Mohammed sells the shares in British pounds and uses the money to buy fuel for Zimbabwe. Mohammed and Gono have transferred over 8 million shares to Britain from Zimbabwe in the past year alone, Harare stockbrokers said.

In early November, Remo sold so many shares that it forced down the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange’s index. Remo sold shares in Econet Wireless Holdings, a telecommunications company, Dawn Properties, Bindura Nickel Corporation, Hwange Colliery Company, Delta and AICO Limited, formerly the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco). Brokers said the money raised from the local sale of the shares was used to buy foreign currency on the parallel market.

“The Reserve Bank is the biggest mover on the stock market. They bought shares aggressively last year, including a 6 percent shareholding in Delta Corporation. The Reserve Bank also bought a 20 percent stake in Cottco and this was part of what it sold this month,” a central bank source said.

Remo Investment Brokers has also bought – on behalf the Reserve Bank – over 67 million shares in DZH Limited; that is a 21.3 percent stake in the company. We hear that the stock bought on behalf of the Reserve Bank is held under nominee companies.

Stock market rules bar banks from buying and holding equities; the Reserve Bank has broken these rules and is now a significant player on the bourse. But who benefits?

Certainly, it is highly profitable for Remo and Ravenscourt. Last year, Ravenscourt imported 49.4 million litres of diesel for the resettled farmers. This was in addition to the petrol and diesel imported by NOCZIM and arranged by Ravenscourt with IPG of Kuwait.

Of the more than 900 million litres of diesel and 730 million litres of petrol a year that Zimbabwe needs, Ravenscourt is importing an increasingly lucrative share, helped by its state-sanctioned partnership with Total (Zimbabwe).

Mohammed I. Mohammed did not respond to a detailed set of questions sent to him by Africa Confidential.