Knives are out for former Transport permanent secretary Thadious Chinyanga over the alleged pillage of a fund meant to compensate owners of companies and houses affected by the Mbudzi Interchange project in Harare, with sources telling the Zimbabwe Independent that there is a section of bureaucrats rooting for his arrest.
Truth Diggers, the investigative unit for Alpha Media Holdings, has it on firm ground that there was an instruction to arrest Chinyanga last week by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc).
The move was, however, aborted because President Emmerson Mnangagwa was away on an international trip.
Sources said the arrest of senior government officials, including permanent secretaries, is supposed to be signed off by the President.
The allegations likely to land Chinyanga in the dock include the controversial circumstances surrounding the compensation of house owners at Harare’s Mbudzi Interchange, and corruption allegations levelled against him by one of the contractors on the multi-billion-dollar project.
The Transport ministry is currently under investigation by Zacc over the multi-billion-dollar contracts awarded to various contractors in infrastructure development.
“Chinyanga was supposed to be arrested last week, but he got wind of the matter and appealed his case with the OPC (Office of the President and Cabinet),” a source told Truth Diggers. “An arrest could not materialise because the President was away.
“There is serious infighting in the government (as a result of the scandal). The matter is being handled at a very high level, but there are two permanent secretaries who are on the Zacc radar, and the arrest of some high-profile people is looming.”
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However, Thandiwe Mlobane, spokesperson at Zacc, professed ignorance on the matter.
“To be honest, at the moment we don’t have that information that we can give,” Mlobane said. “We have nothing to give you.
“I have been trying to find the information and I couldn’t get it, which means there is no one who has that information at the moment to give me. So, the usual people who usually give us information, they don’t have that at the moment.”
Two weeks ago, Mlobane confirmed that the probe was underway, but was not at liberty to disclose full details.
“The investigations are still in their early stages. Commenting now may be prejudicial to the investigations,” she said at the time.
Chinyanga, who has been re-assigned to the National Housing and Social Amenities ministry, said he could not comment since he was no longer with the Transport ministry.
“I am no longer PS for Transport and it would be out of place for me to give a comment. Probably, if you could get the two secretaries (Finance and Transport) to comment,” Chinyanga said.
Last month, several directors at the Ministry of Transport were quizzed by anti-graft investigators after whistleblowers leaked explosive details linking them to the pillage of the fund meant to compensate owners of companies and houses affected by the Mbudzi Interchange project in southern Harare, Truth Diggers can exclusively reveal.
More bosses from the ministry were expected to be grilled by Zacc officials in the coming weeks in a probe that could further expose serious governance deficiencies in government after the looters forced the Treasury to halt payments to contractors last year.
The probe is likely to net bigwigs in the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works along with bosses at two of Zimbabwe’s leading real estate agencies, which made valuations of the affected properties, sources disclosed.
Truth Diggers could not establish the extent of the fraud, which sources claimed involved manipulating figures to inflate the value of properties, which would end with property owners and corrupt officials sharing hefty sums from the looted funds.
The US$88 million interchange, which lies at the heart of southern Africa’s busiest transportation corridors, was a crucial part of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP), which was meant to effect a complete makeover to crumbling roads and bridges countrywide.
Truth Diggers, however, spoke to several authoritative sources who revealed that reports of pillage had exploded through anonymous reports of top-level power struggles in the Ministry of Transport.
“Zacc summoned some directors amid allegations that some owners of properties at the Mbudzi Interchange had their properties overvalued,” one of the sources said.
“The memorandum (containing overvalued properties) was reportedly signed by (a senior official in the ministry whose name was given to Truth diggers).”
This week, the official, who has been reassigned to another ministry, denied the allegations.
“Zacc is in the process of conducting interviews with different officials from the Ministry of Transport. Some officials based at Compensation House have also been interviewed. It is a hot topic within the government,” the official said.
The Mbudzi Interchange project is being executed by a joint venture called Tefoma, after the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Masimba Holdings combined efforts with two other domestic construction firms — Fossil and Tensor — to pool resources and skills and build the mega facility.
The consortium clinched the deal in 2021, and the US$88 million project will be funded through a vendor financing model, with a loan from Fossil already gazetted.
The project will cost US$88 million, which includes about US$35 million set aside to pay off displaced property owners in the area. But the government has so far only paid a fraction of this, delaying the project.
Initially, contractors had planned to complete the project by early next year, but are now behind schedule.
When complete, the interchange will have 13 bridges and 15 kilometres of interchange and service outlets.
