Story Telling Unplugged – C2C Corporate Literacy 101 – Is Strive Masiyiwa Clean?

Mutumwa Mawere, 20/12/2020

Last night Mr. Brian Manyati, a subscribed member of the C2C, and I spent the better part of the evening negotiating how best to tell a story based on a third party source.

I have often wondered why the bible is structured in a story format with chapters and verses and what could have been the outcome if the content and context was in a long form without any breaks.

Imagine a story without the human actors in it, would the bible have lasted more than a generation?

It is not easy to imagine how the writers managed to capture the key messages to be conveyed in a simple and stupid manner.

We live in the digital era in which content that is generated in conversations can be stored and shared in its original and raw format. We have a new form of evidential matter from day to day conversations on app as they are recorded and timed and undeniable.

As members of the C2C initiative, a few days ago, I had a conversation with Brian Manyati which culminated in Brian being inspired to create a WhatsApp group called – WHAT IS A COMPANY – to help raise awareness of what this animal called a company is and is not.

Is a company a vehicle or an object? Who controls a company? There are far too many people who have a relationship with a company be it as shareholder, director and contractor who are without any literacy on what is a company.

Mr Manyati was later on ignited by what Mr. Strive Masiyiwa wrote on his experiences as a Director of Zisco Steel Private Limited at one time.

Zisco Steel is incorporated in terms of Zimbabwean law, with the government being a shareholder and thus allowing it to be classified as a public enterprise.

It is Mr. Masiyiwa’s version that when he was appointed, he was not furnished with basic financial information by the Minister who possessed the right to make board appointments.

He accepted the appointment only to find out that the company was in a deep financial and operational mess.

As consequence of what Mr. Masiyiwa said about Zisco Steel, Brian Manyati was also provoked to give his own account as a victim of systemic corruption at Zisco Steel which led to his unceremonious separation with the company.

He started his story by stating as follows: ‘The Strive Masiyiwa personal story on Ziscosteel reminded me of my own ordeal at the same company where I lost my job without recompense even when it came out that I was only a victim of an evil system that needed not any shining light amidst it.”

It is clear from his vantage point that an evil system that can be characterized without suffering any burden of proof as corrupt existed as a matter of fact and it easy to describe any misfortune as a consequence of the evil intentions of nameless and faceless actors who easily fit the description of an evil system.

What is a system let alone a corrupt one without giving it the life of the real actors whose choices and actions are critical in testing the existence and operation of corruption?

That is when I then raised my concern that Brian’s write up seemed to have imported Mr. Masiyiwa’s personal and untested version of his conclusion that corruption was the only plausible explanation of the state of Zisco at the material time.

The government is no different from any body corporate like a company. It is a vehicle for the people to deliver promises of service yet the reality is that all too often the question of who controls a government and should be held accountable for its operations is never addressed.

Who really should be held responsible for the reality of this vice? Is it the public in whose name a government is instituted and operates or the office bearers who are contractors?

This is for another day.

In the course of our conversation with Mr Manyati which is part of mentorship under C2C, I mentioned another initiative called C2C: Towards Media Excellence.

C2C: Towards Media Excellence is aimed at provoking citizens to be engaged in the enterprise in search of media excellence – telling a story as the facts permit so that the reader can know better using difference lenses on the same facts and circumstances.

Mr Manyati, a keen writer and a critical thinker, was energized enough to know about Mr. Kazungu, an editor of the iniAfrica News, and his experiences in this drive to raise awareness on the urgency and need to improve craft competence of media actors.

This led me to share an email correspondences in relation to a court matter in which Mr. Masiyiwa is one of four Applicants in which Messrs. Pardon Gambakwe, Rutendo Matinyarare and myself are respondents. This matter involves three corporate entities and one natural actor.

In a letter dated 27 December 2020, Mr. Kazungu addressed to a certain Ms. Kira Fuchs, an attorney working for the firm, Fluxmans Inc that is representing the four Applicants.

He asked about the contradiction created on whether Mr. Douglas Mboweni, the CEO of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, the second Applicant, was authorized to make an affidavit in support of this interdict application.

The question of authority to litigate in relation to the three corporate entities arose in terms of Rule 7 of the Uniform Rules of Court in South Africa that myself as self-representing the court of law invoked to attack the bona fides of the application.

It is fact that I issued a Rule 7 notice challenging what the authority relied upon to launch this application since Mr. Mboweni states in the founding papers that his authority to make the affidavit on behalf of the three corporate entities was by virtue of being a CEO of one of the applicants.

It is worth highlighting that the First and Third Applicants are incorporated in Maurtius and South Africa, respectively, yet Mr. Mboweni, CEO of one of the flagship companies listed on the ZSE would be blind to the fact that the control and management of a company vests with its board.

The Econet Zimbabwe CEO, Mr. Mboweni would have the audacity to represent in court papers a version that undermines the juristic nature and operations of companies.

Mr. Kazungu who had read the court papers failed to locate any resolutions in the founding papers that are now in the public domain as a result of this court application that is premised on the allegations that the Respondents defamed the Applicants by publishing facts related to the manner in which Econet Wireless Zimbabwe was funded in 1988.

More-so, Mr. Masiyiwa chose to be represented in the application by Mr. Mboweni who lacked the personal knowledge to assist the SA court in determining whether the alleged defamation was backed by no facts and whether the Applicants were entitled to the protection of the law in terms of an interdict.

It is clear from Mr. Mboweni’s version that no board authority was sought and obtained prior to the launching of the application. He simply relied on his understanding of what is a company and where authority to bind corporate choices and actions resides.

Also peculiarly notable is that after the authority of the Applicants was challenged, Mr. Mboweni took a back seat leaving the lawyers to substitute the litigants as deponents in the matter.

He also asked Ms. Fuchs who deposed to an answering affidavit on behalf of the Applicants whether she had any personal knowledge of the facts and circumstances of the Initial Public Offering of 1988.”

At the core of this dispute is whether Mr. Mboweni’s submission to Court is supported by Mr. Masiyiwa that he can act on behalf of juristic entities without the prior authority of the boards of the companies is consistent with the prescripts of the law.

Mr Manyati had this to say after reading the contents of Mr. Kazungu’s email: “When he (Kazungu) said I have learned that resolutions by first to third respondents were passed in retrospect relative to the authority to litigate question, it is clear to me that there was no authority from the companies but perhaps from Mr. Masiyiwa who is described as the founder and executive chairman of what is termed by Mboweni as the Econet group of companies.

I am still to establish the bona fides of this group as a legal entity and where it is incorporated. I must say I am learning a great deal from this C2C Corporate Literacy project.

If this company exists, it is ironic that it is not an applicant in the cause.

The impression created is that Mr. Masiyiwa who believes he is a guru on corporate matters and governance may not be aware that a company is a creature of law and as such it is not controlled by shareholders but by directors.

Equally, a renowned corporate actor like Mboweni would know better that being a CEO of a company does not clothe a person with authority to commit a company in a court dispute.

I have now come to understand that a law has no extraterritorial application to allow Mboweni to have the authority to commit Mauritian and South African entities to a court action in South Africa without the knowledge and consent of the boards of the companies.

I have also learned that Mr Masiyiwa does not own and control the Applicants to give him any executive authority over them let alone instruct Mboweni to commit perjury and defeat the ends of justice.

I am curious to know after reading the Zisco story what Mr. Masiyiwa will have to say about this.”