NATHAN GUMA
EMBATTLED businessmen Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu have been thrown under the bus by their business partner Wicknel Chivayo who has made a calculated move to save his own skin and also to protect high-profile government officials involved in the US$100 million Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) underhand deal.
The name of President Emmerson Mnangagwa was also sucked into the scandal as Chivayo sought to prove to his erstwhile colleagues how they could further leverage his close proximity to the 81-year-old leader to access more lucrative government tenders.
Government officials said although Chimombe and Mpofu may have cases to answer in their alleged US$7.7 million Presidential Goats Scheme fraud matter and the US$9.2 million Harare City Council street lights tender scam, their real crime is getting into a public fight with Chivayo over the US$100 million deal, triggering a row which led to the exposure of the corrupt deal.
“Chimombe and Mpofu may have cases to answer, granted, but their case is more about politics or the politics of money involving senior government officials than corruption,” a government official said.
“Those corruption cases which they are now facing were known for sometime, but they were only raised and weaponised against them after the Zec scandal. All along it was known they had been involved in those tenders as the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission was already investigating, but authorities only pulled the trigger after the Zec scandal was exposed.” “If they had not fought Chivayo, those cases were not going to see the light of day. That’s where the real issue is. They are being punished for their role in exposing Chivayo and, inadvertently, senior government officials in this massive corruption scandal.”
The Zec scandal — which exposed the rot behind Zimbabwe’s disputed 2023 general elections — has sucked in Mnangagwa, who is close to Chivayo, Secretary to the President and Cabinet Martin Rushwaya, Zec chairperson Priscilla Chigumba, Central Intelligence Organisation Director-General Isaac Moyo, the President’s daughter Chido and other officials who played a role in the looting of public funds in the shadows of elections.
In a letter to Ren-Form over a fallout in payments, Chimombe and Mpofu drew attention to President Mnangagwa, revealing that he was being directly paid by Chivayo.
“Of interest, please note that Mr. Wicknell Chivayo is misleading you by claiming that he is giving top government officials of Zimbabwe part of the payment he is receiving,” leads the letter to Ren-Form dated 24 April 2024 and signed off by Chimombe and Mpofu.
“That is a total lie; even the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe is unaware that he is getting huge commissions using his name. This money has driven him crazy and that’s why, if you check his social media, he is on a buying spree of cars, donating to different individuals across the country, yet he is failing to pay us what we agreed.
“We expect 25% of all the monies paid out to Wicknell Chivayo. Our suggestion is for you to hold all incoming payments and not pay Wicknell Chivayo until you put us all on a round table to resolve this matter.”
While Chimombe and Mpofu were not arrested for the Zec scandal, they were picked up and detained for the US$7.7 million presidential goat scheme and the US$9.2 million street lights tender.
Businessmen Moses Mpofu (left) and Mike Chimombe. Chivayo and senior officials are pulling the strings behind the scenes to ensure Chimombe and Mpofu pay the price for exposing them in one of the biggest corruption scandals to be exposed by the media in Zimbabwe’s journalism history, official sources say.
Chimombe and Mpofu were lured back into the country from China where they were on a business trip after they were promised protection, but things went wrong, leading to their arrest and detention.
Now things may actually get worse for them as they face conviction and imprisonment.
The return from China was against the advice of their lawyers and some people close to them who warned that they would be sacrificed if they returned home under a situation where the rule of law is not observed and pre-trial detention is used as a major weapon to punish suspects in politically charged alleged crimes.
Zimbabwe is notorious for selective application of the law and abuse of pre-trial detention. Predictably, Chimombe and Mpofu have been repeatedly denied bail not on merit, but to punish them for not having good table manners while eating with VIPs at the high table, sources say.
On Wednesday, the High Court once again dismissed their bail appeal, marking the second time their application has been rejected in the goats scam case.
Their other bail application in Meanwhile, in the street lights tender scam, Harare regional magistrate Stanford Mambanje denied Chimombe and Mpofu bail, saying the two are facing a serious offence in which there are high chances that they may abscond as they are men of means and could thus afford to live outside the country.
The street lights case has also been denied.
High Court judge Pisirayi Kwenda ruled on Wednesday that Chimombe and Mpofu should proceed to trial as submitted by the state.
He said they should wait in detention for another month. Prosecutors argued that since a trial date had already been set, their bail appeal had been rendered moot.
Kwenda said: “The objection by the state to the hearing of this appeal based on mootness is upheld and the appeal is dismissed.”
Kwenda had said it was his first time to preside over a bail appeal of someone who has been indicted for trial before commencement of the trial.
He said: “If you are already appearing in a certain court, that court is supposed to deal with that matter. You cannot be appearing in Court A and you go to Court B to apply for bail when that same matter is being heard in court.”
“To proceed in earnest, we should postpone the matter to the first of October when the trial commences. The trial is just 33 days away, why can’t we wait for the trial to commence?”
Prosecutor Anesu Chirenje told the court that Chimombe and Mpofu, who are facing fraud charges, forged a Zimbabwe Revenue Authority tax clearance certificate, and a National Social Security Authority compliance certificate in the name of Blackdeck (Private) Limited, the company involved in the goats scandal.
The pair will return to court on 12 September for routine remand on the street lights case, while their trial on the goats case starts on 1 October.
In his ruling, Mambanje said the duo were not good candidates for bail and the state had a strong case against them.
“The two face a serious offence and upon conviction can get a custodial sentence. They can abscond since they are people of means as they have businesses that earn them good sums of money. It will be easy for them to flee,” he said.
“There is no proof of payment of special oversight commitment fee and it means they got the tender through fraudulent means. Court considered the strength of the state case and they have a case, therefore bail is hereby denied.”
This leaves Chimombe and Mpofu deep in a messy quagmire as they face prospects of being jailed at the behest of their powerful angry erstwhile partner Chivayo and political bigwigs behind him taking their revenge viciously and mercilessly, tearing them apart and burying them alive to protect themselves.
