NOCZIM allegedly bungles US $90 million fuel deal

The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) allegedly bungled a multi-million-dollar deal brokered by a major international financier that would have partly solved Zimbabwe’s fuel crisis, the ‘Financial Gazette’ reported on Thursday. Problems reportedly occurred when the state fuel importer angered the financier by requesting trivial details when the deal was about to be signed. An official of the Swiss-based Marc Rich & Company said the firm pulled out of the proposed fuel deal, worth US $90 million, after almost a year of talks, because NOCZIM sent a letter at the eleventh hour requesting trivial information such as the company’s profile. “We realised that these people were not serious,” the official, who preferred not to be named, told the ‘Financial Gazette’ at the weekend in Johannesburg. “How can NOCZIM ask us for a company profile after almost eleven months of negotiations? Whom did they think they were dealing with all this time in the first place?” Marc Rich and Company’s subsidiary, Marc Rich Investment Ltd, approached NOCZIM last year in February with a proposal to raise US $90 million for a three-month supply of fuel to Zimbabwe. The arrangement could then be rolled over after the initial period to allow Zimbabwe to secure a reliable and efficient supply of fuel and oil products for the rest of the year. The official said MRI was also dismayed at the lack of knowledge displayed by senior management at NOCZIM on the fuel industry and how international fuel deals are struck. Zimbabwe, he added, had no more goodwill left to its name. It was now considered a high-risk country and its sovereign guarantee was now worthless. “There is no revenue book to talk about in Zimbabwe anymore. Tobacco is finished, maize production is finished. There is nothing left to sell in Zimbabwe that can raise the kind of foreign currency needed for fuel every month,” the official said. Industry sources said the MRI deal would have saved NOCZIM millions of dollars, avoiding the high rates the company is being charged on the black market to acquire foreign currency for Zimbabwe’s fuel bill, estimated at US $40 million a month.