Source: Fly Africa dismisses $200k payment claim | The Herald December 29, 2017
Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Fly Africa has dismissed allegations carried in the Standard Newspaper on Sunday claiming it was paid $200 000 by Government to charter President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his delegates to a business meeting in South Africa last week.
Nu Aero (Private Limited), trading as Fly Africa, has written to the newspaper demanding a retraction of extracts of the “Big Interview”, “Why Mnangagwa used Fly Africa” carried in The Standard of 24 to 30 December.
Through its lawyers, Kantor and Immerman, Fly Africa says the article contains statements, which are untrue and potentially defamatory.
“That our client overcharged the Government of Zimbabwe, that our client is owned by foreigners, ‘white people’, our client is idle and not very active. The statements about our client are false and the true position is as follows,” reads part of the letter.
“Our client was never paid $200 000 to charter his Excellency the President and his delegates to the meetings in South Africa.
“To the contrary, our client quoted and were paid a standard ACMI rate of $2 500 per hour of flight time only, which was pegged at a minimum of four hours. Included in that was crew and allowances, bringing it to a total of $10 000.”
The company argues that it is a 100-percent indigenous-owned company with no “white” shareholders.
It also said it was not idle as it is flying and providing lawfully licensed commercial flight services to the Zimbabwean public and all else who require it, with the full endorsement of the parent ministry and regulator.
“The article has caused and is likely to cause our client serious harm and damage, to its brand, reputation and its business. This may include financial harm. Our client is monitoring the impact of the article,” reads the letter.
“It is critical to mention that, the article was printed without verifying the authenticity of the comments, remarks or allegations from our client. It is our view that your reporting failed to measure up to your policy of truthful, accurate and fair reporting.
“To this end, we trust that (you) will proceed to apologise to our client, and publish a retraction of the false statements,” said the lawyers.
They demanded that The Standard removes the article from its website and publish a suitable apology.
The lawyers further argued that Fly Africa did not believe that Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joram Gumbo would have made or volunteered such wrongful, inaccurate and altogether scandalous untruths.
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