Zimbabwe Police Deny Investigating Finance Minister Tendai Biti

Zimbabwe’s police denied investigating the country’s finance minister after a state- controlled newspaper yesterday reported a probe.

Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Sunday Mail cited police saying they were investigating Tendai Biti, who is also secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change party, over a $20 million International Monetary Fund loan deposited in Zimbabwe’s Interfin Bank, a unit of Interfin Financial Services Ltd.

Wayne Bvudzijena, the main spokesman for the police, said in an interview that he hadn’t spoken to the Harare-based newspaper and was unaware of any probe. Biti didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone when Bloomberg sought comment today.

Biti’s MDC party shares power with President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front under a 2009 agreement brokered by the Southern African Development Community because elections the previous year were deemed flawed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham in Johannesburg at in Harare at blatham@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.