Shareholders and board members of the beleaguered Kingdom Meikles group have been threatened with criminal action if they go ahead with a meeting scheduled for today (Thursday). The government has seized the assets of the affluent Meikles group under a controversial anti-corruption law a move that critics say will lead to the looting of the four companies. Kingdom Meikles,Investments have all been listed as specified companies, which allows the government to place them under administration. Lawyers acting for the board have advised that it is perfectly legal to hold the meeting. However, investigators from BCA Consulting have warned the chair, Much Masunda, who is also mayor of Harare, that he and other attendees would face criminal action if they went ahead with the meeting.
Their letter read: KML as a specified person has no authority to convene or assemble its members in accordance with the Notice issued by the board prior to the specification as our authority as investigators is now required which authority will not be granted. Please be advised that should you or any of the directors or members of KML or any person without lawful authority choose to defy our position as set out above, there will be criminal consequences for such contact.
The lawyers, however, are in no doubt that the meeting should be able to go ahead, saying in their advice: Even assumingthat the specification has been validly made, we think this has no bearing on the extraordinary general meeting, and whether it may go ahead as scheduled. Section 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act provides, in Section 10 (1), a list of activities in which a specified person shall not engage. It seems clear to us that the conduct of a meeting of shareholders, which has been convened to determine an issue relating to the dismissal of certain directors, does not fall within any of the prohibited activities we advise that the recent purported specification of your company does not have the legal effect of preventing the convening of the extraordinary general meeting.
The investigators reasons for withholding authority include their allegation that the board had made decisions not in the best interests of the company. They also make allegations about the handling of company funds.
Before the de-merger, an investigation by BCA concluded that the Meikles family led by John Moxon had established externalisation deals indirectly or directly.
Meikles is accused of stashing huge sums of foreign currency in foreign bank accounts in breach of Zimbabwes exchange control regulations. A year into an intensive and highly invasive investigation, no allegation of any wrongdoing on the part of Moxon or his executives has been forthcoming.
According to Moxon: The matters raised in the investigators letter bear no relation to the EGM agenda and are pure speculation on what may or may not happen in the future, in their opinion.
It should be noted that the document has been copied to the two ministers of home affairs, and it will be interesting to see, over the next two days, if one or both of them are complicit with the investigators in denying shareholders their democratic rights.
Post published in: Economy