President Hachilema challenged to act on Mundashi and Manikai

Mr. Shephard Kembo, a member of the Friends of SMM (FOSMM) group that is powering the JUSTICE UNDER RULE OF LAW (JUROL) whose aim is to promote the protection of the rule of law not only in Zimbabwe but the SADC region, said:

“Silence is the greatest betrayal and one would have thought President Hachilema of Zambia within his 100 days to have acted in a matter that was brought to the attention of Mr. Joseph Kalimbwe, the spokesperson of UPND two months ago.

It is chilling that Mr. Kalimbwe was concerned that the facts confirming that President Mnangagwa’s confidante and lawyer, Mr. Edwin Manikai who also chairs the prestigious Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC) was instrumental in causing a Zimbabwean law to be recognized and enforced in Zambia resulting in about $1 million being stolen from TAP Building Products Limited (TAP).

A Zambian judge, Justice Kajimanga granted a judgment tainted by fraud to a captured company called SMM Holdings Limited (SMM) whose control and management was divested and deprived of its UK-registered shareholders and its appointed directors by an act of state.

In a WhatsApp message that went viral, Manikai boasted that the use of public power and law specifically created for the purpose of dealing with the ultimate shareholder’s, a South African based businessman of Zimbabwean heritage, special circumstances that he describes as the cost of crossing political paths with President Mnangagwa.

Manikai and the state-appointed Administrator, Mr. Afaras Gwaradzimba using the draconian regulations under the name Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) – Reconstruction of State-Indebted Insolvent Companies Act, which was crafted by Manikai without the knowledge and participation of the Office of the Attorney General, authored a fraudulent scheme to hijack the control and management of TAP in Zambia.

In order to do this, they needed the active participation of Mr. Michael Mundashi and the late David Phiri, the late Chairman of TAP at the material time, with Mundashi’s firm, Mulenga, Mundashi, and Company (MMC) taking the lead in procuring a judgment in Zambia to declare that TAP by virtue of this extrajudicial instrument was deemed to be under the control of the captured SMM.

The succeed in this scheme and a judgment was granted on the same day, the directors of TAP were dismissed and Gwaradzimba assumed the control and management of TAP on the same day of the judgment,

Manikai was also appointed a director of TAP and Mundashi whose firm was paid a bribe of $10,000 as a deposit by Manikai’s Zimbabwean law firm, Dube, Manikai & Hwacha, DMH, with the balance on a contingency basis with the aim of getting TAP to pay the legal costs.

The scheme was successfully prosecuted by MMC and the shareholders of TAP were forced to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only reversed this criminal judgment after two and half years of illegal control of the affairs in which decisions were made to pay Manikai and Company fees and related costs including the fees to MMC.

After the Supreme Court judgment, Mundashi refused and failed to refund the illegal payments asserting attorney-client privilege.

To date, all the beneficiaries of this fraudulent scheme have not paid the funds they unlawfully appropriate to themselves.

Gwaradzimba and Manikai who crafted the diabolical act, are protected from prosecution in Zimbabwe.

I had thought naively that people close to President Hachilema would take this attack on the sovereignty of Zambia, the fraud on the courts of Zambia, and on TAP.

Mundashi prosecuted the fraud on the false premise that TAP was an associate of SMM but even a layperson would know that without a shareholding link between the associate and the parent, there could be no legal and legitimate basis of approaching a court of law to assert a non-existent right.

As a consequence of the fraud, TAP and its shareholders were prejudiced intentionally and knowingly.

Notwithstanding the reversal of this criminal deal, the prejudice has not been cured.

To the extent that Zambia was used as a forum to export the lawlessness that was authored by President Mnangagwa’s close allies, I felt compelled to register my concern by the lack of action by the administration of President Hachilema.

I read with concern that his Minister of Information and Media and the Attorney General who was briefed on this matter have chosen to be silent leaving TAP and its shareholders without any vehicle to vindicate their rights.

Incidentally, I am informed that the actual damage to TAP in today’s terms is estimated at $5 million based on compounding the stolen $1 million that includes MMC’s illegal fees at an annual interest rate of 12%.

This does not include the prejudice to TAP’s shareholders.”

Below is a tweet shared by Mr. Kembo: