- Ziumbe and Mandiwanzira Own Tarcon
- Ziumbe , State Procurement Board Deputy Chair
- Both Mandiwanzira and Ziumbe suspected of fronting for Gono
- 50% of Zinara revenue going to Mugabe family
- Mugabe’s son a Zinara Chairman
- Mandiwanzira linked to other companies together with Lawrence Gudo, a Tarcon Board Member
by Gift K.Mawire
An investigation into an alleged US$8m Snow Graders scandal linking Minister Supa Mandwanzira’s company Univern has put focus on top lawyer Florence Ziumbe after it has been established that the two jointly own Tarcon Africa Pvt Ltd, with the latter being a Deputy Chair at the State Procurement Board (SPB) ,raising a super conflict of interest, TheZimbabwenewslive can reveal.
The SPB on 19 October 2012 , (Award No PRB 1854 of October 18, 2012, Reference SPB/C/24) gave the greenlight to a company Southern Region Trading Company t/a Univern whose majority shareholder is believed to be Supa Mandiwanzira to supply 40 snow graders to ZINARA.
In the past week, the refusal by the listed company directors Laurance Neil Sher,Sherice Sher and Musekiwa Kumbula to speak to this reporter raised suspicion when they instead directed this reporter to Zinara.
A senior employee at Zinara who spoke on condition of anonymity said his hands were tied and therefore not at liberty to entertain this paper .
“Nyaya dzine vakuru mukati(This issue involves big guys up there.) For your own information, check a company called Tarcon and then you can have a bigger picture. There is a woman there, her name is Florence Ziumbe”, he said.
Ziumbe is a board chairperson at Tarcon, a deputy chairperson at the SPB which awards tenders to entrepreneurs which awarded Univern a tender to supply snow graders in 2012.
Mandiwanzira, who was rescued by President Robert Mugabe by being awarded a powerful central committee position in December, was also elevated from being a deputy minister to head the ministry of information Communication Technology and Courier Services which was under the ousted Webster Shamu, a former vice president Joice Mujuru ally.
“This explains why Mugabe had to make sure Mandiwanzira gets a central committee position as well as being elevated to replace Shamu,” a source said.
Mugabe, using his newly-acquired prerogative to appoint 10 people to the central committee, saved ministers who are close to him including Mandiwanzira and appointed them central committee members.
Investigations revealed Mandiwanzira and Ziumbe co-own Tarcon as Mandiwanzira also chairs the board of directors for Tarcon Pvt.
Mandiwanzira is also a board chairperson of XCMG, a partner to XCMG Co. Ltd China- renowned for multi-billion dollar construction and mining equipment.
In the XCMG Mandiwanzira also sits in the board with Lawrence Gudo (Director) who is also group CEO of Tarcon Pvt Ltd.
“There is an intricate web of corruption taking place at Zinara because everyone is linked to the other’s company,” a Zinara source said.
“The wishes of the first family are strongly represented by Albert Mugabe, the Zinara boss and this just but seals the corruption web.”
In December 2014 Transport minister Obert Mpofu appointed Mugabe, (son to President Robert Mugabe’s late brother Albert who drowned in a swimming pool in the 1980s), as the Zinara board chairperson.
“The first family gets 50% of the revenue and that is the reason the rot at Zinara cannot be solved,” said the source.
“Now you should know why the High court threw out a toll fees challenge by a group of lawyers which wanted to stop Zinara from hiking the tollgate fees by 100% last year. It is clear who is benefiting from all this scandal.”
It is also alleged that duo used to be Gono’s runners for a long time so it is hard to tell how much stake they have in these companies and both used to be on Fingaz board .
Efforts to get a comment from all companies were fruitless as they all declined to speak to this reporter.
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