TRANSPORT and Infrastructural Development minister Obert Mpofu yesterday sent tongues wagging when he appointed Godwills Masimirembwa as chairperson of the State-owned Central Mechanical Engineering Department (CMED).
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Masimirembwa’s appointment, which was approved by President Robert Mugabe, came 10 months after the 90-year-old Zanu PF leader accused him of extorting money from a Ghanaian businessman.
Mpofu, however, tasked Masimirembwa and his new board to recover the $2,7 million CMED was allegedly duped into paying by a local fuel supplier, First Oil, in a clandestine deal involving top government and Zanu PF officials.
Mugabe last year accused Masimirembwa, then chairman of the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), of demanding a $6 million bribe from William Ato Essien, a Ghanaian diamond investor, in the now defunct Gye Nyame Resources in Marange.
But in February, Mugabe made a U-turn and exonerated Masimirembwa, saying he had been misled and claimed Essien was a “crook” who failed to inject capital into the diamond producer.
Mpofu said Masimirembwa would be deputised by former senior police officer Seymour Mpofu.
Other members of the board include Chipiwa Philimon Pasipamire, Sihle Khabo, Tinotenda Nhewede, Phinias Lugube, Tedious Chinyanga and Rita Likukuma.
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Asked how he felt about his appointment considering the Gye Nyame Resources controversy, Masimirembwa said: “The Executive, with the approval of the President, has seen that I am fit to be part of the team and to lead it.”
Masimirembwa was chairman of the National Incomes and Pricing Commission, a price control enforcer, when Mpofu was Minister of Industry and International Trade.
When Mpofu moved to Mines and Mining Development, he again appointed Masimirembwa ZMDC chairman.
Mpofu said the new board should recover the $2,7 million it paid First Oil for the delivery of fuel more than a year ago.
He said the people who collected the money from CMED were known and so was the location of their offices.
Mpofu said the ministry did not need a “commission of inquiry to investigate that”.
“If they [First Oil] don’t supply, the law has to take its course. I want the board to bring the people to account and make them make good on the prejudice to the State,” he said.
Mpofu said there were claims that the suppliers were “untouchable”, but “we are going to touch them”.
“We want that money and it will be repaid,” Mpofu said.
In March, CMED managing director Davison Mhaka told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development that First Oil had failed to deliver the fuel.
Mpofu said CMED should immediately venture into public transportation “as part of government’s thrust to curtail challenges facing urban passengers”.
He said the ministry would support CMED’s venture into high-volume buses to ply urban routes in both Harare and Bulawayo as government moves to ban kombis from the country’s roads.
“We are not going to force out kombis, they will be forced out of business. They have to compete with high-volume buses,” Mpofu added.
“It will be economic trends that take their course to bring sanity in our cities.”
Mpofu said the general feeling was that the phasing-out of kombis would bring order on the country’s roads.
The move comes after previous government attempts to bring rationality did not yield the desired results.
“We are coming up with measures that we feel address the situation. We are phasing out kombis and not operators, and we will support operators in acquiring high-volume buses,” Mpofu quipped.
