In a surprising twist, two well-known local businessmen, Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu, are in serious trouble after clashing with their business partner, Wicknell Chivayo. A high-ranking government official has revealed that Chivayo turned on them to save himself and protect top government officials involved in a huge US$100 million scandal with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Chimombe and Mpofu are facing fraud charges linked to two separate scams: a US$7.7 million Presidential Goats Scheme and a US$9.2 million street lights tender. But the bigger issue for them seems to be a fight they had with Chivayo over the US$100 million deal, which has revealed corruption involving senior officials.
“Chimombe and Mpofu do have charges to answer for, but their situation is more about money and politics than real corruption,” a government official explained. It seems the authorities knew about these fraud allegations for a while, but only brought the charges forward after the ZEC scandal became public. If Chimombe and Mpofu had stayed out of the fight, their cases might have been ignored.
The ZEC scandal has brought to light the corruption behind Zimbabwe’s disputed 2023 elections. It involves some very powerful people, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is close to Chivayo, as well as other top officials like Secretary to the President Martin Rushwaya, ZEC chairperson Priscilla Chigumba, and the President’s daughter, Chido. These officials have been linked to the misuse of public funds during the elections.
Chimombe and Mpofu’s problems started when they had a disagreement with Chivayo over payments related to the US$100 million deal. This disagreement exposed the ZEC corruption. Although they were not arrested for the ZEC scandal, they were quickly charged for the fraud linked to the Presidential Goats Scheme and the street lights tender scam.
Sources say that Chivayo and the high-ranking officials are now making sure that Chimombe and Mpofu face the consequences for bringing the corruption to light. Chimombe and Mpofu were even tricked into returning to Zimbabwe from a business trip in China. They were promised protection, but once they came back, they were arrested.
Their lawyers had warned them not to return to Zimbabwe, telling them that they would be punished for exposing the corruption, especially since politically charged cases in Zimbabwe are often unfair. In many cases, the law is applied selectively, and pretrial detention is used as punishment, even before a trial begins.
As their lawyers had feared, Chimombe and Mpofu have been repeatedly denied bail. It is not because their charges are too serious, but because they are being punished for “not having good table manners while dining with VIPs,” as one source put it. On Wednesday, the High Court denied their bail appeal for the second time in the Presidential Goats Scheme case. Their bail application for the street lights scam was also rejected.
High Court Judge Pisirayi Kwenda ruled that Chimombe and Mpofu should stay in detention and face trial in a month’s time. He said their bail appeal was pointless since the trial date had already been set for October 1, which is only a month away.
Prosecutors claim that Chimombe and Mpofu forged tax clearance certificates and compliance documents to get the tenders for the scams they are accused of. In the street lights case, Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje also denied them bail, saying that since they are wealthy men, they could easily leave the country to avoid going to trial. If convicted, they could face long prison sentences.
Chimombe and Mpofu now find themselves in a very tough position. They are caught in a struggle with Chivayo and the powerful officials who support him. These officials seem determined to make sure Chimombe and Mpofu take the fall for the ZEC scandal. It looks like their disagreement with Chivayo has cost them, and they now face a long and difficult battle in court, with little hope of escaping the political storm that has surrounded them.