Police have launched investigations into the US$6 million corruption allegations being levelled against former Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation board chairman Mr Godwills Masimirembwa.
He is alleged to have demanded a bribe from Gye Nyame, a Ghanaian firm which intended to invest in diamond mining in Zimbabwe. Gye Nyame started mining operations in Marange in 2011.
In a statement last night, police chief spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said preliminary investigations into the case were in progress.
“The Zimbabwe Republic Police would like to advise that the case of corruption allegations against Mr Godwills Masimirembwa is receiving our attention and preliminary investigations are going on,” she said.
Snr Asst Comm Charamba said the absence of the Ghanaian businessman, who should be the complainant in the case, was stalling progress.
“We expect the investigations to progress speedily once the relevant Ghanaian comes to give a statement of complaint as he is the crown witness in the matter,” she said.
“For now, he is out of the country and efforts are continuing to contact him to come and assist the police with these investigations as soon as possible.”
The probe follows revelations by President Mugabe that Mr Masimirembwa demanded US$6 million bribe from the Ghanaian firm and later threatened the officials that they would be arrested once they set foot in Zimbabwe.
The targeting of Masimirembwa will not convince many who accuse Mugabe of protecting ministers in his own cabinet accused of also accepting bribes and engaging in corruption. Former Mines Minister Obert Mpofu and current Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo being prime examples.
Mpofu has accumulated spectacular wealth from alleged corrupt deals in the Mines Ministry and is said to have gone on a real estate shopping spree, buying properties in the Bulawayo area including the Ascot Race Course and Casino. He also bought dozens of properties in Victoria Falls.
Not bad for a man who signs off his letters to President Robert Mugabe as “Your Obedient Son.”
Chombo’s wealth was exposed in 2010 in a messy divorce involving his wife of 25 years, Marian. Court documents exposed the fact that Chombo, a former teacher, had tentacles in virtually all sectors of the economy.
The minister has interests in several farms, mines, hunting safari lodges in Chiredzi, Hwange, Magunje and Chirundu, as well as properties in South Africa. Local properties included 75 residential and commercial stands plus 14 houses and 5 flats, all dotted around the country. Not to mention 15 vehicles.
Even when a probe team of Harare City Councillors produced a report implicating Chombo and businessman Philip Chiyangwa in the illegal acquisition of council land on the cheap, the police refused to investigate the matter. Instead the councillors and journalists who covered the saga were arrested.
In March this year Justice Charles Hungwe granted the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) permission to search the offices of Mines minister Obert Mpofu, Indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere, and Transport and Infrastructural Development minister Nicholas Goche.
The commission also pounced on the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (NIEEB) and Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) offices which fall under Kasukuwere and Goche respectively.
ZACC had obtained the search warrants after its investigators were reportedly denied entry to conduct searches at the three offices. It was only pro-Mugabe judge, Justice George Chiweshe who blocked the searches.
Kasukuwere and NIEEB have been in the limelight over alleged corruption in indigenisation transactions, involving particularly the Zimplats deal which observers say prejudiced the country of many millions of dollars.
Police investigating Chombo, Kasukuwere, Mpofu and Goche would be a more convincing start.
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