Mangoma remanded in custody

The police accuse the minister, who is also deputy treasurer in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC, of squandering almost $4.4 million of public funds. He appeared in court on Thursday for his initial remand hearing amid a heightened security presence. He was not asked to plead but his lawyers deny wrongdoing in the awarding of a contract to NOOA, a South African company, to deliver 5 million litres of diesel, at 88 US cents per litre. The police charge sheet says the US$6 million fuel deal was made privately in December outside State Procurement Board procedures. The company allegedly supplied only 20 percent of the supplies. But Mangoma insists all the fuel was delivered.

His arrest comes after an explosive government-commissioned audit report that exposed widespread corruption at State oil procurement firm, NOCZIM, including the embezzlement of US$35m of Zimra funds between February 2009 and February 2010. The audit, naming top government officials who had stolen from NOCZIM, including ministers, was conducted by top auditing company Ernst and Young. It has been tabled in Cabinet before its made a public document. Mangoma was escorted from his Chaminuka Building offices Thursday morning by three plain-clothes officers.

He is the latest of a series of MDC officials to have been arrested ahead of a watershed election that President Mugabe wants in August but the Prime Minister wants much later after constitutional reforms. Mangoma is also the highest-ranking.

Official sources said the NOOA deal was above board, even though there were late deliveries and if there was anyone who should have been arrested, it was supposed to be Justin Mupamhanga, the permanent secretary, who is the accounting officer of the ministry. “The minister is not the accounting officer,” said our source. The Zimbabwean on Sunday understands Cabinet was fully briefed about the NOOA deal last week and the previous week. Earlier, Mangoma had told a news conference at Chaminuka House last week that the rest of the fuel was offloaded the previous week and alleged there were people out to tarnish his reputation. Mangoma alleged that “bureaucracy” had stalled the deal deliberately to raise a storm for him.

“Delays were encountered in transferring the funds taking six days in total,” Mangoma told reporters at Chaminuka House, the same place he was picked up Thursday morning. “However, when the first train came with fuel, it spent over 10 days at Beitbridge without being cleared. This was clearly the work of a bureaucracy determined to create a story. The fuel was only offloaded last week after the intervention of the minister of Finance.”

The minister also blamed political opponents for trying to exploit the NOOA situation, faulted the bureaucracy which facilitated the stock deal for failing to provide complete information and heaped criticism on the State Press. Mangoma’s permanent secretary told the parliamentary portfolio committte on Mines and Energy three weeks ago that government had been “hoodwinked” in the deal.

Mangoma strenously rejected these claims, saying the fuel eventually was delievered, and showed proof.

“During December 2010 and January 2011, there was virtually no fuel to sell available for Zimbabwe,” Mangoma told the news conference. “NOOA petroleum of South Africa offered 5million litres of diesel. The US$6 million was then paid into a NOCZIM account and transferred into the Petrotrade account as NOCZIM was no longer functional. This was then handled as a purely administrative matter. In a meeting attended by the director Petroleum, the permanent secretary and myself, we considered it prudent to procure, the only fuel that was available at that time using the Strategic Reserve Levy. The Strategic Reserve Levy will be used in future to purchase fuel to cover market failures.”

Mangoma’s arrest is being touted as part of a campaign against deep-seated corruption in Zimbabwe. But the circumstances surrounding his arrest are raising new questions about whether President Mugabe, who has full control over the police through his proxy Augustine Chihuri, is really using the drive as an excuse to jail supporters of his arch-rival,Morgan Tsvangirai.

Four MDC legislators are currently languishing in custody, and the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled to dethrone the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Lovemore Moyo, chairman of Tsvangirai’s MDC prty.

The minister was detained by police acting under a warrant that was not discussed with the Home Affairs ministers. That’s where the story becomes murky. More than denying they did anything illegal, the Home Affairs minister Theresa Makone says she ws never briefed by Augustine Chihuri about the minister’s arrest, neither was the cominister Kembo Mohadi. We could not reach him at the time of going to print for comment.

Magoma’s NOCZIM audit is said to have stepped on some people’s toes, and threatened to spill the beans about government ministers involved in the shady deals at NOCZIM. The angry ministers, who we will name after getting the audit report this week, are fighting Mangoma’s attempts to rid the parastatal of deep seated corruption.

“Its the forensic audit at NOCZIM that has caused all this,” said a Cabinet source. “The NOCZIM fat cats and big fish in government are behind Mangoma’s arrest. Its a preemptive strike. They want to discredit the messenger. But there is a paper trail which shows that there is no wrongdoing by the minister.” Our Cabinet source added it was nothing but political score-settling. A week before his arrest, Mangoma said: “NOCZIM has stolen $35m of ZIMRA funds between February 2009 and February 2010. This was a symptom of malpractices at NOCZIM.”

Mangoma said the forensic audit, which has still not been made public, uncovered that among other things: “NOCZIM management: i) had committed fraud. ii) had taken third party stocks. iii) misrepresented facts regarding the amounts due to ZIMRA. iv) had failed to account for the stocks properly between its own and third party stocks. v) had failed to account for the Strategic Reserve and Debt Redemption levies. vi) had failed to account for the Strategic Reserve stocks.”

Mangoma’s radical reforms at NOCZIM has infuriated some “fat cats.” He has unbundled NOCZIM into two firms, PetroTrade and the National Oil Infrastructure Company. He has retrenched 106 workers, and imposed austerity measures that have complicated the theft.