Judge: 'Mawere's corporate veil pierced'

Judge: 'Mawere's corporate veil pierced'

Mawere

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• Whistle blower demands $30 billion

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• Makamba released, rearrested

• Makamba faces 22 forex offences

• Makamba arrested

By Staff Reporter

MUTUMWA Mawere, the exiled Zimbabwean business mogul will remain specified after a High Court judge told him: "Your conduct justifies the piercing of the corporate veil."

Mawere who is now based in South Africa was contesting the government's decision to declare him a "specified person", which means an individual's assets can be frozen and confiscated by the State.

Mawere has already acquired South African citizenship and has survived an extradition bid by the Zimbabwean authorities.

Justice Tendai Uchena said he was satisfied by the government's case advanced by Caroline Mudenda from the Attorney General's Office.

"In the circumstances, I find that though Mawere is no longer a Zimbabwean, his alleged conduct brings him within the provisions of section 6 (11) of the Act (Prevention of Corruption Act).

"The application is therefore dismissed with costs," said Justice Uchena in his judgement released Wednesday.

Zimbabwean authorities accuse Mawere of externalising more than $300 billion dollars through his company SMM Holdings, which has since been taken over by the government.

Uchena dismissed Mawere's argument that Zimbabwe's new laws targetting the externalisation of foreign currency did not apply to the business mogul because he was now a South African citizen.

In his founding affidavit, Mawere attempted to argue that “the Prevention of Corruption Act does not have extraterritorial application, and creates no crime or conduct that has extraterritorial effect."

Uchena was also not impressed with an argument, advanced by Advocate Adrian de Bourbon for Mawere, that the government should have issued notice before specifying him in July last year.

Mawere had also contended that the government had ulterior motives in specifying him as it had failed in its bid to extradite him from South Africa.

Mawere started living in South Africa in November 1995 after quitting the World Bank, where he worked as senior investment officer in the private sector wing of the Bretton Woods Institution.
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