Exchange controls cost Padenga US$9 million

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CROCODILE skins exporter cum gold miner, Padenga Holdings (Padenga), says it lost US$9 million in 2021 due to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s limitations on the retention of export proceeds.

During the period, the group’s export revenue from the crocodile farming division was subjected to statutory surrender requirements at 40 percent.
“By the end of the year the disparity between the auction rate and the alternative market rate had widened to approximately 2:1. This implied that on 40 percent of turnover, the group would receive ZWL dollars at half the alternative market rate,” Padenga’s board chairman, Thembinkosi Sibanda, said in the group’s 2021 annual report, which was published last week.