Senior Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) managers have been
accused of evading laid-down procedures when payments were done to Intratrek
Investment fronted by flamboyant businessman Wicknell Chivayo for the Gwanda
solar project, as fresh details on the controversial matter emerge.
A report prepared on June 4, 2019 by ZPC legal secretary
Nora Tsomondo for the new Energy minister Fortune Chasi reveals that the
company’s technical director, Robson Chikuri, allegedly avoided engaging the
board in the implementation of the project and all payments were made in small
batches to duck the board’s approval.
Chasi was appointed as Energy minister last month and has
demanded that Zesa recovers the US$5,6 million advanced to Chivayo for the
Gwanda solar project.
The report states that senior managers structured the
release of the funds in a manner that was aimed at skirting the involvement of
the board and without a surety as required by law.
“The un-securitised advance payments were authorised
through payment release certificates that were signed by the following
officers: Managing director, projects and technical director and the finance
director. Ironically, there was no progress at the project site against which
the payment release certificates were made, i.e, the certificates were
fictitious,” part of the project update submitted to Chasi read.
“The board was also not aware that Intratrek had been paid
without an advance payment guarantee. The payments were made in small weekly
amounts which were within the managing director’s threshold and thus did not
need board approval.”
Chikuri was appointed projects and technical director and
was acting more as the accounting officer on the deal. He is the current ZPC
acting managing director.
In December last year, High Court judge Justice Tawanda
Chitapi absolved Intratrek of any wrongdoing or causing delays in the
implementation of the project and declared the contract valid, extant and
enforceable.
In March this year, Justice Owen Tagu acquitted Chivayo in
the US$5,6 million fraud case after ZPC laid the charges. Justice Tagu stated
that the allegations were defective because the facts could not sustain a
criminal suit.
But in the report to the minister, Intratrek on April 26,
2016 got a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe nod to load US$849 475 on their Visa card
for the purpose of procuring earth-moving equipment from a US-based supplier.
“A Google search on the supplier revealed that the address
on the invoice for the earthmoving equipment was an unoccupied block of
residential flats. The advance payments were made to the contractor without
knowledge of the company secretary’s office, which administers all contracts,”
part of the report read. Newsday
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