HEALTH minister Obadiah Moyo is in the dog box after the
Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) opened a docket to probe his
qualifications and controversial coronavirus deals following a complaint by a
private citizen, the Daily News reports.
This comes as Zacc and the police have also questioned
senior officials at the ministry of Finance, the Procurement Regulatory
Authority of Zimbabwe (Praz) and medical supplies firm NatPharm over the
procurement of Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPEs).
It also comes as it has emerged that President Emmerson
Mnangagwa has ordered that a contentious US$60 million PPE deal be cancelled,
after Interpol raised the red flag on the credibility of Drax International —
one of the firms that supplied materials to the government for the management
of the disease.
Yesterday, Zacc confirmed to the Daily News that it had
opened an investigation into Moyo after receiving a complaint filed by human
rights activist Makomborero Haruzivishe on Thursday.
The probe has been recorded under report number RRB 000359.
“We are going to investigate all the cases brought to and
recorded by the commission.
“I would not want to say so and so has brought what case,
but I can confirm that investigations are under way.
“We are also investigating cases, including those to do
with the procurement of Covid-19 materials after we received reports to that
effect,” Zacc commissioner and spokesperson John Makamure said.
“Besides the reports from individuals, this (case) has also
been playing out on social media, hence we were obliged to act.
“So, we are indeed talking to ministry of Health officials,
the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, as well as NatPharm,”
Makamure further told the Daily News.
Moyo was not answering his phone yesterday when the Daily
News tried to talk to him.
In his written complaint, Haruzivishe said besides probing
the procurement of Covid-19 equipment, Zacc should also investigate allegations
that Moyo was not a trained medical doctor, contrary to his claims.
“I am writing to you requesting an investigation into a
case of highly suspected corruption on the medical qualifications of ‘Dr’
Obadiah Moyo, who also happens to be the minister Health and Child Care, and
cases of exposed grand corruption surrounding Covid-19 supplied goods, and
granting tenders to bogus and briefcase companies.
“I would further like to bring to your attention the
unearthing of corruption of earth-shattering proportions in the ministry of
Health which is under the stewardship of Moyo, involving Covid-19 tenders.
“At a time when millions across the world, Zimbabwe
included, have succumbed to the coronavirus pandemic, Moyo is abusing his
ministerial position by awarding highly inflated tenders to shelf companies …,”
Haruzivishe further alleged in his complaint sent to Zacc chairperson Loice
Matanda-Moyo.
“The shelf companies, Drax International, Jaji Investments
and Satewave have since been exposed to be bogus, that they do not have
capacity to deliver and … are only avenues of massive corruption for crooks
like (name supplied but withheld) who are working hand in glove with Moyo,”
Haruzivishe added.
He also questioned why test kits that allegedly cost US$2
each were being sold to the government for US$34 each by Drax International.
“Considering that on the attached invoice 15 000 kits were
sold, US$480 000 was looted at one go.
“Another incident is with Jaji Investments which paid six
(US) cents per kit and charged the government US$14,75 per kit.
“It was paid US$66 375 for equipment valued at US$300. Moyo
is believed to have direct interests in the deals and he even lied that the
test kits were from Namibia when they were brought from China,” Haruzivishe
alleged further.
This comes as the government has pulled the plug on the
US$60 million deal, whose controversy has overshadowed Zimbabwe’s fight against
the lethal coronavirus.
The Daily News has been told exclusively that Mnangagwa
long ordered the cancellation of the Drax deal, as well as stopping the
attendant payments, after police commissioner- general Godwin Matanga briefed
him over concerns by Interpol — which had said the company was blacklisted.
“Something else also happened and this is the unsaid story.
Godwin Matanga, the police commissioner-general, then brought a security report
from Interpol which said this company (Drax International) had been blacklisted
by Interpol.
“No one knows that, people are busy focusing on the pricing
issue. Cabinet then took a decision that over and above the company’s abuse of
pricing they are also on the Interpol blacklist, and thus supply contract must
be cancelled.
“As far as we are concerned there is no connection between
Drax International and the first family,” Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, George
Charamba, told our sister publication Daily News On Sunday yesterday, which
will run his explosive interview in its edition tomorrow.
“Secondly, this is not a live issue. The government had
long dealt with this issue well before it even hit the headlines.
“What you are looking at is not even smoke, these are the
dead embers of a fire that was long put out.
“The instruction to stop and cancel the supply came from
the president. It was not even the Cabinet. In fact the matter was raised from
the President’s Office,” Charamba said further.
“Remember the President’s Office is not only reliant on
information from line ministers, we have our own sources of information.
“There is not a single minister who is privy to the
security report, the security report is for the president’s eyes only and that
is where the Interpol issue was raised and he (Mnangagwa) took a decision based
on that,” he added.
Moyo has come under growing fire from many quarters over
his ministry’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
His suitability for
the job and his qualifications have also been under the spotlight — resulting
in the complaint by Haruzivishe to Zacc, who says that Moyo’s name does not appear
on the Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe register.
“The minister (Moyo) also says he is a Fellow of the Royal
College of Pathologists, yet a search on the college’s register does not show
his name.
“This worries me as a citizen and I wonder if the
qualifications he boasts of were obtained fraudulently.
“I also wonder if that could be the reason why he has
dismally failed to deal with the health care crisis in the country.
“I, therefore, call on your highly esteemed office to urgently
investigate these issues,” Haruzivishe said further in his complaint. Daily
News
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