Michael Mundashi Exposed in a $127,346.10 Fraud against TAP

Mr. Michael Mundashi, the Managing Partner of Mulenga, Mundashi, and Company (MMC), a prominent Zambian law firm, with over 30 years of experience in Dispute Resolution and commercial litigation, pensions, and Tax advisory services, and enjoys the rank and dignity of State Counsel bestowed on him on account of his eminence in the practice of law, was a beneficiary of a corruption scandal that is now before the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe.

The facts of the matter are that on 6 September 2004, the government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) was used as a vehicle to divest and deprive the shareholders of a company called SMM Holdings Limited (SMM), whose sole parent was a UK registered company, SMM Holdings Limited, of the control and management of SMM without any judicial or parliamentary involvement.

Mr. Edwin Manikai, one of the founders and director of a Harare based law firm, admitted on 27 March 2021 that the project to expropriate all companies that were deemed to be under the control of the ultimate shareholder of SMM and related companies, Mr. Mutumwa Mawere was orchestrated as part of a political strategy to position President Mnangagwa as the successor to the late President Mugabe.

The affected companies were employers of about 20,000 people and generating annual sales revenues of about $400 million.

The then Minister of Justice, Legal & Parliamentary Affairs, Hon. Patrick Chinamasa, appointed an Administrator of the company falsely alleging that the company was indebted to the state and as such the state was entitled to self-help and interpose itself as a creditor with extrajudicial powers.

Manikai and the Administrator, Mr. Afaras Gwaradzimba, working in cahoots with Mr. Mundashi hatched an elaborate scheme to hijack the control and management of TAP Building Products Limited (TAP, a company duly registered and operating in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe.

In order to capture all the targeted companies, the regulations used to divest Mawere were crafted so as to allow a reconstruction order issued in relation to SMM to be applicable to what is described in the regulations that were promulgated using state of emergency powers that allow the President to invoke temporary measures to address a national emergency like COVID19, as associate companies.

In terms of the regulations that were subsequently converted into an Act of Parliament, an associate was defined as follows:

 “associate”, in relation to—

       (a)    a company referred to in paragraph (a) of the definition of “company” or anybody or association referred to in paragraph (c) of that definition which is registered or incorporated in terms of the Act, means—

                           (i)   its subsidiary, as defined in section 143 of the Act;  or

                          (ii)   any company of which the company is the single largest shareholder;  or

                         (iii)   its holding company, as defined in section 143 of the Act;  or

                         (iv)   where the company is itself a subsidiary of a holding company, as defined in section 143 of the Act, any other such subsidiary of the same holding company;  or

                          (v)   any person who has power, directly or indirectly, to control the company’s management or policies;

It is not clear how Manikai when and how Manikai was appointed to prosecute the corporate coup using public power suffice to say that he admits that his proximity to President Mnangagwa helps explain the multiple and conflicting roles he has played in the SMM saga that is still raging after 18 years.

Manikai’s law firm, DMH, was purportedly instructed by Gwaradzimba to export the application of this draconian law to Zambia.

That is where Mundashi was roped in to be the Zambian point person. According to the records made available to us, MMC was instructed by Manikai’s firm, DMH, that is also President Mnangagwa’s law firm, to launch an application before the High Court of Zambia, alleging as true and fact that TAP was an associate of SMM in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe.

“One would expect a seasoned lawyer like Mundashi purports to be, to know better that Zimbabwean laws have no extraterritorial application, but he took the brief from DMH who only paid a deposit of $10,000 to MMC.

The balance of the $137,346.10 was paid by the hijacked TAP. Mundashi fraudulently misrepresented to the High Court of Zambia that SMM was the parent of TAP when this was false. SMM was not related to TAP by any shareholding yet surprisingly Judge Kajimanga granted the most absurd judgment in the world to SMM that resulted in the control and management of TAP being divested of its control and management.

It is true and fact that Gwaradzimba appointed directors to the company who included Manikai, a close confidante of President Mnangagwa, who studied law in Zambia, and during the time, the invoice by MMC to DMH was paid by TAP on the instructions of Gwaradzimba.

The shareholder of TAP appealed against this judgment and won on appeal. Notwithstanding, MMC refused, neglected, and failed to refund the stolen funds that totaled $700,000 without the legal fees that TAP and its authentic shareholders had to pay to vindicate their rights and freedoms in relation to TAP.

Since the Supreme Court decision of June 2008, Mundashi’s firm has appropriated the funds yet the effect of the appeal judgment was to nullify any purported relationship between SMM and TAP.

I am not sure why attorneys who commit fraud on the courts and on innocent companies like TAP can get away with conduct that is criminal.

TAP had no legal relationship with MMC to justify any payment at all.

I have since launched a constitutional case in Zimbabwe against the President of Zimbabwe that is pending. I included Manikai in the dispute because his own record of the facts and circumstances leading to the prosecution of a right that was acquired by an act of state in Zimbabwe was enforced in Zambia.

Even a pedestrian lawyer would be alive to the criminality inherent in prosecuting a matter using false information.

An associate is related to a parent through the medium of shareholding yet Mundashi was paid for pretending for personal gain that an associate in the Zambian jurisdiction could be created by falsehoods.

Out of the $700,000 siphoned from TAP, MMC got away with $127,346.10. I have brought these facts before the Court in Zimbabwe.

I believe that MMC genuinely believes that it is entitled to this unjust enrichment. I have no doubt that the truth will prevail and this criminality cannot be allowed to go unpunished,” said Professor Mupasiri, Director of the Justice Under Rule of Law initiative that is supported by the Friends of SMM (FOSMM), who is the applicant in the matter in which the Zimbabwean Court is being asked to determine whether President Mnangagwa who has associated himself with the conduct of people like Manikai and Mundashi does not constitute a failure to fulfill a constitutional obligation and more importantly whether his conduct in protecting criminals who surround him and give him advice can pass constitutional muster.

A number of questions were written to the Minister of Information and Media, Hon. Chushi Kasanda has refused, neglected, and failed to respond to the critical questions that arise from the conduct of Mundashi, an oath-taking individual in the protection of the rule of law who benefited personally from proceeds of crime.

It is not in dispute that the driving minds of the fraud live in Zimbabwe and in accepting the loot, Mundashi knew and ought to have known that these criminals are protected by the draconian law that provides as follows:

“s6    Effect of reconstruction order

A reconstruction order shall have the following effect, namely that—

    (b)       no action or proceeding shall be proceeded with or commenced against the company except by leave of the administrator and subject to such terms as the Administrator may impose.”

Mundashi is apparently a ranked lawyer in Zambia. It is unfortunate that Chambers Global ranks him as one of the ‘Leading lawyers’ with respect to General Business Law and Dispute Resolution in Zambia. He is also ranked by the Legal 500 as a Leading Individual.

He is a member of the Law Association of Zambia and admitted to the bar in Zambia. He has an LLB from the University of Zambia and a Legal Practitioners Qualifying Examination Post-Graduate Certificate from the Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education.