Former energy and power development minister, and opposition leader Elton Mangoma has appeared before Harare Magistrate Ruramai Chitumbura to answer charges of criminal abuse of office together with two Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) employees Josh Chifamba and Tererai Mutasa.
The trio were granted $1000 bail each and asked not to interfere with state witness, surrendering travelling documents and reporting to their nearest police stations.
Allegations are that the three accused persons connived and un-procedurally tendered a $3 million technology transfer deal to a South Korean company in 2010.
It is the state’s case that in 2010 Choi Young Jin of Techpro Company Limited of South Korea met Mangoma at his offices in Harare and agreed that they enter into a technology transfer partnership with ZESA Enterprises.
Mangoma allegedly instructed Mutasa to liaise with Techpro to establish a partnership.
Mutasa then wrote to the State Procurement Board seeking advice on procedures to be followed in such partnerships and was advised to proceed with section 49 of the repealed Procurement Regulation Act chapter 22.14 and to seek assistance from State Enterprises Restructuring Agents (SERA).
SERA advised Mutasa to prepare a memorandum which Mangoma would submit to the interministerial committee, (IMCCPP) on commercialization and privatization of parastatals recommending Techpro through a competitive bidding process.
Upon receiving the business proposal memorandum and bid documents for tender, Chifamba who is ZESA Chief Executive Officer and Mangoma connived to bypass the IMCCPP approval stage and the competitive bidding process, favouring Techpro.
The state argued their act caused and prejudiced Zesa Entreprises (ZENT) of $850 000 which they paid to Techpro company.
The state is represented by Zivanai Macharaga from President Emerson Mnangagwa’s special prosecuting unit.
