Legislator Norman Markham has described the construction of Airport Road in a deal which saw City of Harare transferring thousands of hectares of land to Augur Investments, as the biggest land robbery in the history of Zimbabwe.
The airport road deal was awarded to Augur Investments without going to tender and saw City of Harare pledging 4000 hectares of land as payment for the work done.
Ironically, Michael Mahachi who was caretaker council chairperson at the time the contract was awarded was also project manager for Augur Investments.
In his answering affidavit at the High Court under case number 425/2021 Markham who is seeking reversal of the deal said Augur Investments did not carry out any structures.
“Sadly and fraudulently, the Augur Investments did not carry out any structures and bridges. As indicated before the only road work done, was the road work done by Faircclot which I quantify at US$5,103,915.64. There was nothing done on street lighting,” Markham said.
According to court documents presented by the legislator only 2, 7 kilometers were completed with the total work quoted at US$80, 153,303.98.
“The total work completed was for US$5,770,980.84. The total work that was not completed was US$74,387,323.14. The total percentage of the quote that was completed was a mere 7.20%. There can never be a fraud bigger than this. As I keep on saying, this is the biggest land heist in Zimbabwe. The fraud does not end there.” he said
Markham said the whole process of awarding Augur Investments OU the tender to construct the road was ‘incestuous’.
“The letter dated the 4th of August 2014 from Classic Project Management found at record at 74 of the opposing affidavit is written by Michael Mahachi to the Town Clerk of the City of Harare Dr. T Mahachi. Yet the same Michael Mahachi, was the Commissioner who executed the agreement with the City of Harare.
“So the project management engineer Classic Project Management is a company owned by Michael Mahachi the same Commissioner who signed for and on behalf of the City of Harare in May 2008. This level of corruption is shocking. The whole process was therefore incestuous right form the word go,” read Markham’s affidavit.
