eBusiness Weekly
Martin Kadzere
State law enforcers have launched a major investigation into suspected criminal abuse of office by NetOne acting chairperson, Susan Mutangadura, after she reportedly appointed her business associate — Retired Justice Moses Chinhengo — to preside over a disciplinary hearing of suspended CEO Lazarus Muchenje.
The appointment of Rtd Justice Chinhengo had already raised eyebrows given that Mutangadura, the complainant against Muchenje — who is on suspension facing various allegations including incompetence — is a panellist at Africa Institute of Mediation and Arbitration (AIMA), a company founded by the judge.
It, however, emerged this week that NetOne has filed an urgent chamber application, seeking to bar the law enforcement agents — who had obtained a search and seize order — from accessing relevant documents largely citing confidentiality.
By the time of writing, the date for hearing the case had not been determined at the High Court.
However, Mutangadura could not comment this week apparently as the matter is in the courts.
“Unfortunately I cannot comment at the moment for professional reasons,” said Mutangadura.
NetOne, a wholly State-owned enterprise, was formed in 1996 as the first cellular network provider in Zimbabwe and it is the country’s second largest mobile operator after Econet, with about three million subscribers.
Muchenje was suspended on February 20 this year, alongside acting chief finance officer Tinashe
Severa. Muchenje approached the court, seeking nullification of the suspension, of which the interim relief order was granted.
On March 12, NetOne appealed the order to interdict the hearing process at the Supreme Court and used that as the basis to proceed with the hearing. However, the hearing failed to take place after Muchenje insisted that any proceedings would be illegal since there was an interim relief order barring the hearing.
However, last week, some investigators from Central Investigations Department (Serious Frauds) launched a probe into potential abuse of office by Mutangadura for appointing her “business associate” and whether she declared her interests.
“The police got the order to search and seize relevant documents, which they needed for their investigations,” said a source who requested not to be named because the matter is now under judicial consideration.
“However, NetOne made an urgent chamber application seeking to interdict the investigators from accessing the documents.”
Mutangadura was authorised by the NetOne board to appoint a disciplinary hearing authority to preside over the hearing proceedings of Muchenje and Severa through a resolution dated February 20, 2019. She then used powers given to her by the resolution to appoint Rtd Justice Chinhengo to preside over the hearing. This is evidenced in a letter to Muchenje dated March notifying him to appear before Rtd Justice Chinhengo.
Corporate governance experts say the appointment of Rtd Justice Chinhengo was in violation of Section 34 and the Public Entities and Governance Act, which states that where a board member or a senior staff member of a public entity knows or has any reason to believe that any of his or her public associates has acquired or holds direct or indirect pecuniary interests in any matter that is under the consideration by the board or that is or, to his or her knowledge, is likely to be the subject matter of a contract between the public entity and any other person, the board member or senior staff shall forthwith disclose to the entity’s board.
Mutangadura took over from former board chairperson James Mutizwa, who alongside other two directors resigned early February this year after allegedly pressured to do so by senior officials in the Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Courier Services. Two other board members, including Dr Douglas Mamvura are on the firing line. Dr Mamvura, a renowned marketing executive and entrepreneur is accused of not attending meetings despite not having been invited for a single meeting since his appointment in October last year.
Recent reports claimed that the resignation of the board members were due to poor performance. It was claimed that according to the assessment report done for the entire board, those who resigned scored very low and failed to produce a viable turnaround strategy to the Ministry, which forced them to quit.
It has since emerged that there was not a single board member who was “ever independently” assessed or evaluated according to their performance contracts. The only purported assessments done were for the full board and the chairman who was independently evaluated “and this was done very unprofessionally.” Even though, the so-called evaluation report that was done on the chairman was not as damning.
A former board member claimed that the chairman scored 3.5 which was above average.
“We have never been individually assessed as board members, we noted the weakness of the whole board and if it is true that the board deserved to be fired by identifying its weakness, then it also raises eye brows why the other board members are not being fired,” said the former board member who requested not to be named.
Police national spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi had promised to comment after getting a brief from the CID but follow up calls were not answered.
