Empowerment Corporation (EC) and Telecel Zimbabwe board chairman James Makamba has pledged to bring the warring parties to a round table and resolve the internal shareholding squabbles that have attracted damaging negative publicity at the country’s third mobile network provider.
BY CHARLES LAITON
Makamba in a statement said EC had a 40% stake in the mobile firm and was ready to resolve the impassé.
Early this month, Makamba’s business partner Jane Mutasa filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court seeking to block the planned elevation of President Robert Mugabe’s nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, to the post of chief executive officer of the mobile cellular firm.
Zhuwao was expected to land the CEO’s post at an extraordinary general meeting which was set for last Friday, but the move was thwarted by Mutasa. In the same urgent chamber application, Mutasa, through her lawyer Charles Chinyama, had also sought to bar Makamba from selling 40% of the mobile network provider’s shares without her approval.
Telecel has been caught up in a protracted shareholding dispute involving various EC shareholders who, through the investment vehicle, reportedly own a collective 40% in the mobile operator.
According to Makamba, the original EC shareholders include Affirmative Action Group, Indigenous Business Women Organisation, Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union, Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans’ Association, Zimbabwe Small-Scale Miners Association, Kestrel Corporation (Private) Limited and Integrated Engineering Group.
Makamba in a statement on behalf of EC yesterday said: “The shareholding of EC went through various re-organisations during the formative years of Telecel due to the need for EC to raise funding for its contribution to the capital requirements of the project. It is these reorganisations within the shareholding of EC that have formed the unfortunate basis for the current disputes.
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“EC, as represented by me, its chairman, has taken the decision to finally resolve all matters pertaining to the shareholding of the company. EC has engaged the relevant ministries with the specific purpose of rationalising and resolving the issues related to the shareholding of the company.”
The businessman added: “I am confident that this legacy impassé will be resolved in a manner that recognises the immense contribution and hard work by the Telecel Zimbabwe employees and partners as well as the contribution by Telecel Zimbabwe to the national fiscus since inception and especially over the past difficult years.”
