Source: Businessman sues Chinamasa – DailyNews Live 04 January 2017
Tendai Kamhungira
HARARE – Mutare businessman Tendai Blessing Mangwiro – who is frantically
fighting to recover his money confiscated by police following his arrest
on theft charges in 2008 – has dragged Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa
to the High Court seeking an order to compel the Treasury chief to release
the funds.
Mangwiro has won several court applications for the law enforcement agency
to release $78 900 and a further $1,5 million impounded from him, but has
not received a single cent yet.
The businessman launched the court battle to recover the money after he
was acquitted in 2012.
However, upon demanding back his money from the police, he was advised
that it had been handed over to the then complainant – Andrea Nsaka Nsaka.
In November last year, High Court judge Amy Tsanga ordered the jailing of
Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo for 90 days, following his
conviction for defying a court order demanding that he facilitates release
of Mangwiro’s money.
However, Chombo filed a Supreme Court appeal challenging the decision.
He also argued that he had since purged the contempt through a letter
written to Treasury in March last year requesting that the money be
released in terms of the State Liabilities Act.
This has prompted Mangwiro to file the fresh application for a mandamus
order, seeking to order Chinamasa to release the money, in terms of the
request made by Chombo.
“These proceedings seek to compel the minister personally as the office
bearer to take steps necessary to have the payments made from the
Consolidated Revenue Fund.
“His failure to do so will obviously be contemptuous of the order of this
honourable court and at a later stage may/or will result in him being
personally lodged to prison which could not happen if he is sued in his
official capacity only,” Mangwiro said.
He further demanded Chinamasa must “comply with the order…within 14 days
of this order having been served on him, or his (permanent) secretary or
any responsible person in his ministry, failing which the respondent
(Chinamasa) be and is hereby declared to be in contempt of this order”.
Mangwiro said he has lost a lot of money paying lawyers to file court
applications in his bid to recover the money, but to no avail.
“…I have no other option but to seek the assistance of this honourable
court to compel respondent to execute his statutory duty cast upon him by
the Public Finance Management Act in order to pay funds out of the
Consolidated Revenue Fund as requested by the minister of Home Affairs
(the judgment debtor),” he said.
Mangwiro has also challenged the State Liabilities Act after failing to
find recourse, claiming it was being abused to avoid complying with court
orders.
High Court judge Edith Mushore is yet to rule on the matter.
COMMENTS
Attempting to fight the Zimbabwe government is a futile exercise. It is corrupt, it is dysfunctional, it is incompetent and – worst of all – it is totally shameless and devoid of any moral integrity.
Stop wasting more money for now, and wait for a new government – they will refund your cash. Even if you succeeded now, you will get a truckload of the new Zim dollars (AKA bond notes)
Written from personal experience (except the last).
Should we be surprised? Zanu stole our farm that the family had tended for 100 years and Zanu managed or encouraged Scoones and Hasluck to support their actions “in the national interest!” I guess we can better understand the saying “every man has his price!”
please enlighten me – you refer to “Scoones” – what is the meaning of this term or who is this person ?
thank you
A Zanu Mujiba from University of Sussex who is pushing the Zanu agenda at all costs. A great supporter of the FTLRP and even wanted to have his design on Bond notes. Human rights are not part of the University of Sussex’s intellectual capacity – it seems. The wholesale murder of civilians in the Zanu process was simply a matter of scrambling some eggs to make a Zanu omelette.