Msika warns Chiyangwa in ENG scandal

Msika warns Chiyangwa in ENG scandal

CHIYANGWA

• Chiyangwa threatens cop in court

• Chiyangwa implicated in ENG scandal

• ENG directors charged with fraud

• Banks face collapse

• End of era for forex dealers

• Gono new RBZ governor

• Tea boy to national purse

• 1000 held in forex blitz

By Staff Reporter
10/01/04
ZIMBABWE’S acting President Joseph Msika issued the clearest warning yet that the government was not for turning on it’s financial sector sweep-up, chiding flamboyant businessman and showy parliamentarian Phillip Chiyangwa for threatening police investigators.

"Wherever our law enforcement agents are carrying out their normal mandate in bringing to book any suspected offenders, no person irrespective of his or her political status or rank will be allowed to defeat the course of justice," Msika told a gathered crowd in Mazowe, near Harare.

Chiyangwa, a senior figure in President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party and key donor, was last week implicated in the country’s biggest financial scandal ever. When he appeared in court Thursday, he immediately turned it into a theatre, threatening police investigators and at one time told the prosecutor to “stop asking irrelevant questions”.

He had been summoned to explain accusations that he tried to pervert the course of justice by hiding evidence needed in a multibillion dollar fraud case for which two directors of an asset management firm have been charged.

In keeping with his elegant style, Chiyangwa sped to court in his expensive metallic grey BMW saloon and was clad in a black suit, tartan shirt and maroon tie. He carried a black leather handbag.

When court proceedings began, Chiyangwa had the public gallery in stitches. He constantly referred to the prosecutor as a “young man”, prompting the magistrate to intervene.

"The courts do not operate that way," said magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe. "He is a chief law officer in the Attorney-General's office…a very top lawyer for the government."

But a defiant Chiyangwa interjected: "He is my young man. I was his chairman in the anti-corruption task force, where he was a chief lawyer. I do not want him to ask me unnecessary questions.”

When asked about police claims that he held onto two cars which were needed as evidence in the fraud case and hid them in his house, Chiyangwa lost it, firing a broadside at the police before sending a chilling warning.

"As for the excited policeman, who brought up these allegations, I will deal with him at some stage," railed Chiyangwa, a member of the notorious black empowerment organisation – the Affirmative Action Group.

He refused to withdraw his threat when asked to do so by the magistrate.

Commentators have been closely watching the government’s clampdown on financial impropriety within the financial services sector which sits on an asset portfolio of over $4 trillion.

Observers feared another state cover-up for the wealthy Chiyangwa who was last Wednesday revealed to be a 40 percent shareholder in Eng Capital Management which collapsed last week and whose directors stand accused of misappropriating over $61 billion of investor funds.

But Msika, in a speech that economic watchers will find refreshing, said the law would not be applied selectively and warned Chiyangwa to stop his threats at law officers.

“Some misguided colleagues are trying to frustrate investigations, bragging that they have political muscle,” the official Herald newspaper quoted Msika as saying. “What political muscle? Who are you? It does not matter whether you are high up there, I will show you that I have more political muscle than you….we shall deal with you."

Msika further said “the law in Zimbabwe was unlike a cobweb, which can catch small flies but will let wasps and hornets break through”, in reference to long-standing accusations that the rich and powerful in Zimbabwe were committing crimes with impunity.

It remains unclear if Chiyangwa will be arrested for hiding two luxury vehicles belonging to the two accused directors – Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda - which police recovered at his house. He denied doing so in court and said his only involvement with the case was to try and protect “the two boys”in his capacity as a “black empowerment guru”.
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