This emerged amid renewed controversy regarding Shabanie-Mashava Mines, a Midlands-based asbestos mining company owned by business mogul Mutumwa Mawere and placed under curatorship by the government in 2004 over claims that it was heavily indebted and needed reconstruction.
Allegations emerged this week of selfish manoeuvring by senior Zanu (PF) officials who deliberately misinformed Mugabe as a way of getting at Mawere for not giving them kickbacks after they enabled him to acquire the British-owned mine.
Observers say this is in line with normal Zanu (PF) practise whereby anyone assisted by them to get ahead in business has to be generous in greasing the palms of the top officials involved.
Mawere, speaking in a telephone interview from South Africa, described Mugabe as an ill-advised person. “Individuals with their own agendas chose to give Mugabe the wrong advice and he is being confused in the process. He should be properly informed in order to make balanced decisions. Mugabe is watching with his eyes wide open as the constitution and other laws of the country are being murdered,” said Mawere.
He reiterated the argument he had put forward in court that the role of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, headed by Gideon Gono, was questionable.
“You don’t understand where the RBZ came from in this absurdity (placing of SMM under curatorship). What was Gono’s interest in it? If at all I owed anyone money, was the RBZ part of that? There are things that just don’t make sense,” said Mawere.
A source privy to the process leading to the takeover of SMM named two top government officials as having influenced Gono to present a case against Mawere’s continued hold on the company to dovetail with a plot that started in 2003 and had gone a step further with the gazetting of legislation specifically meant to ruin Mawere.
He said one of them, who has a vast business empire and has been named in the looting of diamonds from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s when Zimbabwe militarily intervened to prop up Laurent Kabila, was angered by the fact that Mawere was not giving him kickbacks from the mining proceeds.
He further alleged that Gono “cooked up figures” that he showed to Mugabe to demonstrate that SMM was compromised by a heavy debt and therefore needed to be placed under curatorship.
This reportedly followed the promulgation of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Reconstruction of State Indebted Insolvent Companies Act in 2004.
Speaking about the law, Mawere has reiterated his position that it was enacted to fix him. “How can you create a law to deal with one individual? Since it was used on me, have you heard of any other individual or company that has been dragged to court using the law? Yet how many companies are severely in debt. In any case, who is reconstructing SMM and how far have they gone?” said Mawere.
Mawere also queried the role of the government in the SMM court saga, saying it did not make sense for the government to impose itself as the creditor and curator, insisting also that the case of debts should have simply been handed over to the courts to deal with at a civil level.
Documents at hand suggest that the State broke the law when it placed SMM under curatorship as it violated the in duplum law that provides that no loan should acquire interest in excess of the capital borrowed.
According to a management report originated by a reputable auditing firm for the year ended 31 December 2006, a loan acquired by SMM from government accrued interest more than four times the sum borrowed.
The auditors recommended that, “in the absence of a structured agreement to the contrary, interest accrued should not exceed the capital amount granted”. SMM was also accused of externalising foreign currency by selling asbestos outside the country and failing to remit the money back to Zimbabwe.
Gono had not responded to e-mail questions sent to him. His Senior Personal Assistant, Denise Naicker told The Zimbabwean that Gono had had sight of the questions.
The RBZ governor at one time indicated that he supported moves to have SMM returned to Mawere.
A South African High Court judge ruled recently that Mawere, now living in self-exile in that country, should pay R18 million to SMM. The judged concluded that Mawere had used two South African-based companies to deprive SMM, a Zimbabwean company, of the money due to it from the sale of asbestos.
The case has been dragging on in the courts since 2006 and Mawere has since launched an application to challenge the verdict, accusing the judge of racial bias and failing to adequately consider submissions made by his defence team.
Post published in: News
Hard to believe you Mr Mawere, where did you get the money yourself to acquire these mines from the British? Is it you or the same British who were buying back the same mines using disguise?
This really is a case of the ‘pot calling the kettle’! One is aghast at the sheer blatant cheek of one criminal calling out another, and the only person to suffer is the man in the street. Come on Zimbabweans rise up and throw the trash in the gutter where you have been for so long.