Roger Boka: Zimbabwe’s Banking Pioneer & Wealth Creator

Zimbabwe’s Roger Boka was a visionary and an economic freedom fighter. He broke the economic glass ceiling when he launched the first black owned Merchant Bank in Zimbabwe, United Merchant Bank. Prior to Boka’s launch, Zimbabwean banking had been dominated by foreign banks with colonial roots and colonial attitudes like Barclays Bank.

Before Boka, many Zimbabweans could not imagine that black Africans could actually own a merchant bank. Once, Boka broke the glass ceiling on black owned banks, many banks emerged after that. By the early 2000s, many black owned banks were household names including Trust Bank and Kingdom Bank. Since Boka there have been many other African owned banks operating in Zimbabwe removing the myth that only colonialists could control the money.

Boka changed the national conversation from working Zimbabweans aspiring for high powered jobs to realizing the power of ownership. Boka had a dream to break the white minority’s hold on the nation’s business and wealth. New capital was needed to fund Zimbabwean owned companies value. In 1994, Mr. Boka became the first black Zimbabwean to be awarded a tobacco merchant’s license. He also persuaded President Mugabe to give government financial guarantees to black traders for all their tobacco purchases.

Why Boka Started United Merchant Bank

1. To fund Boka Tobacco Auction Floors at a time where Zimbabweans were not allowed by law.
2. To finance black owned businesses which European multinational banks refused to fund such as Kubi Chaza Indi’s Pur Line Cosmetics.
3. Provided favorable terms to African entrepreneurs
4. Funded tobacco farmers since Zimbabwe is agro based and tobacco was the highest money maker
5. At the time,Zimbabwe’s white-owned banks were financing white tobacco merchants so they could depress tobacco prices and cheat the country of revenue.

Why the bank failed

• Senior politicians belonging to the ruling party Zanu PF borrowed from United Merchant Bank but never repaid their debts totaling over $26 million
• The Zimbabwean government refused to bail out United Merchant Bank so that they would not have to repay the debts, government entities owed to United Merchant Bank
• Corruption and economic mismanagement
• Reduction of tobacco prices depressing economic activity
• Polypreneurship (the ability to get economic benefits due to political connections removed some banking controls needed to set up bank to safeguard deposits and protect from bank

Roger Basil Nyikadzino Boka was the third of nine children born to a family in a poor rural area of eastern Zimbabwe. When he was young, according to an account of Mr. Boka’s life published in his corporate group’s in-house magazine, his father worked at a general store. His father, grew a furniture business that enabled him to buy a Ford truck, which for blacks in Rhodesia was a considerable accomplishment. His success attracted the ire of many whites, according to Mr. Boka’s account, and on several occasions, his father was jailed at the whim of Rhodesian police.