Staff reporter

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor, Dr John Mangudya, has dismissed reports carried in the trailer of an unaired documentary by a Qatar based television network, Al jazeera.

Through a press statement yesterday, Dr Mangudya, dismissed the documentary’s false and malicious narrative that the bank was ‘Southern Africa’s laundromat’ for an alleged African gold mafia involved in illicit gold dealings, corruption and money laundering.

"The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (the Bank) is concerned and disturbed by sensationally wild, false and malicious media reports, carried in snippets of an unscreened Al Jazeera documentary, produced by the network's Investigative Unit, purveying the impression that the Bank is "Southern Africa's laundromat" or "Southern Africa's laundry service" for an alleged African gold mafia involved in illicit gold dealings, corruption and money laundering," reads the statement.

The RBZ Governor accused Al jazeera of having a sinister agenda by indicating that the widely publicized snippets of the unscreened documentary, omitted the Bank's responses to 32 questions Al Jazeera Investigative Unit posed to the Bank in connection with the allegations.

"The peddlers of this narrative have a sinister agenda with nefarious objectives of tarnishing both the Bank and the Republic of Zimbabwe. In the spirit of transparency and social responsibility, the Bank responded to all the 32 questions in detail on 27 February 2023 and the responses clearly show that the narrative, so far purveyed, is nothing but false.

“The Bank is disappointed that either Al Jazeera Investigative Unit has not included the Bank's responses in the information they have leaked to or shared with their selected media houses and journalists, or the concerned journalists have elected to ignore the Bank's responses and only published the fake allegations in a malicious pursuit of a hidden agenda, unknown to the Bank or Al Jazeera,” read the statement.

Meanwhile, analysts have also criticized the documentary on the basis that controversial opposition activist, Hopewell Chin’ono is one of the first people to acknowledge the documentary.