via Mliswa defends $165m ‘extortion’ bid 30/03/2014 NewZimbabwe
ZANU PF legislator Temba Mliswa has defended pursuing businessman Conrad “Billy” Rautenbach over some $165 million in “facilitation fees” for helping link the tycoon with influential ruling party officials.
According to the Herald newspaper, Mliswa, Zanu PF’s Mashonaland West provincial chairman, claims to have helped arrange meetings for Rautenbach with Didymus Mutasa and other top party leaders to help smooth the way for lucrative business deals.
Rautenbach is said to have initially paid Mliswa various monthly sums for the “facilitation” but later abruptly stopped the payments, forcing the MP to threaten legal action through his lawyers.
The deals include the controversial Green Fuel Arda Chisumbanje ethanol project where Rautenbach claims to have invested US$650 million. Mliswa demanded US$65 million for helping facilitate the investment.
In letters from attorneys seen by the Herald and written between 2010 and 2011, Mliswa also demanded US$100 million for a platinum concession in the Midlands province which he claims Rautenbach sold to Anglo American Platinum who have since developed Unki Mine at the site.
The MP claims Rautenbach grossed about US$1 billion from the Unki deal alone. Mliswa also demanded payment for helping him to move into Hwange Colliery.
“It is true (that I demanded the payment). He (Rautenbach) looked for me and he got me involved. I took him to every high-ranking official he knows today in Government,” said the MP.
“I was part and parcel of it. He said my shares cannot be made public because I am a Zanu PF politician and he will not get funding. He used to pay me. He has stopped and I took the legal route.
“He then confronted high-ranking officials in Government for me to withdraw my papers. I took him to Chisumbanje (in) a helicopter. What did he think I was doing in that helicopter risking my life? It was not a free ride.
“He (Rautenbach) tried to send people for me to settle everything out of court but I refused. Government is dealing with a criminal, and as a legislator I cannot allow that.
“It is not about me wanting his money but Government understanding that it is dealing with a criminal. Right now he should account for a Government platinum claim that he sold to enemies of this country at Unki.”
Asked which top officials he approached on behalf of Rautenbach, Mliswa said: “The person who was then Minister of Mines and Mining Development (Dr Obert Mpofu) and my uncle Didymus Mutasa.”
“I was aware of that but I did not try to assist anyone. I do not know what you are trying to say and I do not have anything else different to tell you,” said Mutasa, who is presidential affairs minister and Zanu PF administration secretary.
Mliswa claimed he was awarded the contract to develop Arda Chisumbanje but approached Rautenbach because he did not have the capital.
Regarding the Midlands platinum concession, the legislator said: “He got it under Toddal. He speculated and sold it and that is the money he used to set up the ethanol plant at Chisumbanje.
“I am not fighting him. I have to protect my country from dealing with criminals. He used the country’s resources to make money. It is a crime as he never remitted the money.”
COMMENTS
Mliswa was awarded contract to develop Chisumbanje , without capital.
Zanu, Dydimus, Obert., corrupt to the bone.
Mliswa has admitted to criminal activity roping in this Billy and the Zanu bosses and he is still walking free.
Poison.
I cannot believe this. We should make a movie of this. How to kill a nation the Zanu way. Block buster,red carpet and all. We can then recover a few millions .
These murderous ,thieving , treasonous looters.
Mliswa your moral compass is seriously broken-For ‘introductions’ you demanded a cool $165M. What is your comment that this amount is the equivalent of 45000 years of labour for the average Zimbabwean. Just to say Mpofu and Mutasa, meet Rautenbach. Honestly I would have no problem stringing you up from the nearest tree you immoral crook.
These guys are each as bad as the other. A spell in Chikarubi would benefit them all
Temba Mliswa. The professional looter. The only good thing about him is that he is singing like a Canary. In my opinion he has got a few screws missing. Definitely not a full box of chocolates.A man called Hutu said this would happen. It would be interesting to hear Apolitical’s views on these two.
do little I think we should ignore the little twerp-we have put more effort into skewering him than he deserves.
Wasn’t Mliswa a cleaner at a local gym years
Yep!Maybe a barbell fell on his head!
ok if u were given 165m, how was given your uncle (mutasa) and obert mpofu? i wonder why u r saying mpofu should tell us how he got his wealth, u know that its from shade deals between u, mpofu and your uncle. mbavha dzikatadza kugovana zvadzaba dzinopedzisira dzobayana. billy is not a criminal its u who should b investigated. corrupt idiots.
wanted to say how much was given mutasa and mpofu
$165m for a kickback! That’s not on. This is the same guy who has been asking in Parliament where ministers got their money when he can get a $100 million for just referring someone to his uncle.
This is corruption at its worst.
Also how could this guy with neither capital nor know-how be awarded the Chisumbanje project? Who awarded that project to him? This is just the tip of an iceberg but it goes on to show how this corrupt regime has brought the country down.
People getting millions of dollars just to get people to talk to their uncles whilst Bob sleeps on the wheel.
What’s really quite bizarre is that Mliswa thinks kickbacks are legal and quite ok! No wonder Zim is bust and they still just don’t get it!
He uses a lawyer to collect his kick backs through “legal” correspondence. Why has he not been arrested with his stupid lawyer. His lawyer is a fake and Mliswa has no knowledge of what defines corruption yet he talks of stamping out corruption.
Oh yes, we all know about that stupid lawyer!!! He defends all the rubbish in ZANUPF. Mliswa is as bent as a hairpin – still on the loose grabbing farms – cocky little s…t – he definitely needs putting away for a very long time.
Stick around – their time is coming very shortly.
That’s what unrepented and continual sin does to a person and to a party. It warps and warps and blunts the conscience. A very dangerous place to be Pray Zimbabwe. God is greater than all this
mafia style, its who you know!!
People in Zimbabwe are so desperate and hopeless, they don’t know how to deal with this monster called Zanu PF
Its so so sad
Yes but God does!
Mliswa characterises the worst of ZPF. He is very bad news. Thug, cheat, liar, fraud, in fact he has all the attributes one seems to need to make into leadership positions in Mugabe’s ZPF. The scary thing is that ZPF is full of people like Mliswa.
$165 mill sheesh. Just another day “for the crooks in paradise’. Apologies to Phil Collins. This soap opera will play out and die down, like all the other bits of nonsense currently on the go and no one will be held accountable, all this while the country burns.
Mliswa has been so entangled in the way that ZANU PF do business through gangster tactics, that he really believes this is the way the world works. The main thief and looter has breed hundreds if not thousands of other theives and looters. This is just one example come to light because he has not received his blood money so he is singing like a canary.
the tax man should do his job and get the tax he should pay on that money when he carnt pay it he will drop all his mates in it to save himself. then the tax man will say what a good job we done were is our pay rise were did the head of the army get the money to build his house in borrowdale brooke on the pay he gets?
It is becoming obvious that zanu are feeling the heat-this monster will implode from within
What do you expect from guys who think business is done by the barrel of the gun.These guys have no clue how to generate funds through the moral methods because our rule of law supports these criminal individuals.I suggest that this other crook Mr Rautenbach and see where he will take the issue to what limits.These crooks will murder each other very soon.This would be God’s blessings to our poor country.
This cheap and uncultured magistrate should be ashamed of his silly greediness which tarnished his professional status.Maybe this image thing does not matter to this corrupt lawmaker but it matters to deceit people when they meet the public.
This ethanol plant may not last for too long because it is surrounded with evil acts like under paying the plantation workers and cheating the motorists with high blended fuel costs which will end up destroying our vehicles.Evil deeds cannot last forever.
ps-omission-Rautenbach should not pay and see….
This forum has talked much about the dangers of corruption but seems the more talk about this evil, the more it flourishes. The laws of this country have been completely overtaken by corruption. This forum must refocus its attention to issues to do with regime change to end all the rot in this country. It is clear that ZANU PF and government is responsible for all the corruption overflowing the country. Remove ZANU PF and government to rid the country of this evil.
@Tongoona you make a good point, but the wheel is already in spin and there is no telling who it is naming. And believe that the loser now will later win later win for the times they are changing.
The silence from Apolitical is deafening!Icho!
PLAIN & SIMPLE – THERE IS NO HONOUR AMONG THIEVES!!!
I never used to understand the desperate type of situations which drove soldiers a 2-3 decades ago to stage coups and summarily shoot politicians for stealing from the state and rigging elections(unfortunately the coup leaders often. ended up corrupted themselves).
Until we experienced the last 15 odd years in Zimbabwe, I honestly thought that level of naked corruption and unclenching grip on power was some peculiarity of politics in West Africa.