Fired Zinara board exposed for shielding graft Zinara offices

Tendai Mugabe, Harare Bureau
The recently fired Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) board led by Mr Wilfred Ramwi has been exposed for shielding deep-seated corruption at the State enterprise relating to the Infralink project, which refurbished the Plumtree-Mutare Highway.

A copy of a letter written by one member of the dissolved board, Ms Patricia Bwerinofa, on August 1, 2017, exposed how Mr Ramwi and his team protected four senior managers involved in corrupt activities with regards to the Infralink project.

The four senior managers implicated in the shoddy deals are Messrs Precious Murove (administration and human resources director), Simon Taranhike (finance director), Simon Matengabadza and Peter Boterere.

Information at hand shows that the quartet was suspended for sourcing foreign currency on the parallel market to service a loan extended to the road administrator by the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

For that illegal activity, the four were arrested and criminal charges were preferred against them.

Ms Bwerinofa then wrote to fellow board members, in a letter which our Harare Bureau is in possession of, intimating that the charges against the four be withdrawn because they were in possession of sensitive financial information relating to the Infralink project.

She further said if the matter was to be discovered by the media, it would be blown to “unimaginable” levels.

“Zinara’s jurisdiction on the issue at hand is questionable since this is a matter under Infralink, thereby bringing up a technicality, which may render the whole hearing process ineffective,” she wrote.

“There are very confidential details regarding Zinara/Infralink payments going back several years in the hands of the finance director and finance manager that may be used in their defence to the detriment of the institution.

“The media is already hostile with the little they have picked up so far, but would really blow the matter to unimaginable proportions on receiving more details.”

The four directors returned to work controversially after the Mr Ramwi-led board resolved to deal with the matter “internally.”

On August 31, 2017, Mr Ramwi wrote to the then Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo advising him that the board had resolved to withdraw the charges against the four and return them to work with immediate effect.

“This letter, therefore, serves to advise that the board has taken a position to withdraw all four cases, recall all four employees back to work effective immediately as we continue monitoring and dealing with the cases internally,” read part of the letter.

Investigations showed that no further action was taken by the board against the four until it was dissolved this week.

The move to drop charges against the Zinara managers infuriated the then Transport and Infrastructural Development permanent secretary Ambassador Machivenyika Mapuranga.

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