Wicknell Chivayo was moving ruthlessly: Back in early 2024, the Zimbabwe Defence Industries had already vetted a legitimate supplier for auxiliary ammunition and equipment. The quote was a clean US$20 million. Treasury sat on the payment for a while, and then surprisingly the same request suddenly reappeared, but now with Chivayo as the lead supplier. The price for the exact same goods? It jumps straight to $69 million. Just like magic.
In the same year, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), which is the central bank of Zimbabwe, needed an IT systems upgrade. A capable company won the tender fairly at $10 million. Then, without much explanation, the contract got cancelled. The original winner was reportedly pressured to drop their legal challenge after being assured a new tender would be issued. When that “new” tender finally dropped in mid-2024, Chivayo walked away with it at $50 million, five times the original price. More interesting is that the same experts who had quoted $10 million were quietly brought back as subcontractors to do the actual work for their original fee, while Chivayo kept the $40 million markup for himself.
Just two deals alone and Chivayo siphoned off roughly $89 million in pure profit from the Zimbabwean taxpayers' public coffers.
At the face of a struggling nation, Chivayo, who enjoyed extreme state powers, was spending millions buying cars as gifts. He spent $750,000 on a Bentley, and early this year he was spending $10,000 an hour renting a Gulfstream private jet for his travels. Despite all that lavish spending, he barely touched even 1% of the money he made from those two contracts.
@TembaMliswa Are you back to Zanu Pf Sabhuku? All we Zimbabweans want is a free and fair election in 2028 as per the dictates of our sacrosanct Constitution. Is Zanu Pf bereft of capable candidates to contest in 2028?
@nickmangwana Zimbabwe has millions of capable potential Presidents who can do far better. Kurambira pachigaro why can’t you learn from the Mugabe exit?
@eNCA Treat the case with wide open eyes as the cartel is fighting to go down with many innocent souls. We all heard how their kingpin attempted to no avail to smear Lt Gen Mkwananzi during the Madlanga Commission hearing.
With respect, @ProfJNMoyo, your framing oversimplifies both history and political reality.
Many movements that later became mass-based and people-driven were initiated by individuals before evolving organically. Leadership does not negate popular ownership. What matters is whether citizens ultimately identify with, participate in, and defend the cause — not who first articulated it.
Secondly, the CCC situation cannot be reduced to “running away.” It was an unprecedented case of judicial and state-assisted capture of a political vehicle. Persisting within a structure that has been legally and administratively hijacked would have meant legitimising that capture. Strategic withdrawal is not cowardice; in hostile political environments, it is often survival.
On infiltration: political parties have demonstrably been easier to infiltrate than decentralised civic movements. History — including Zimbabwe’s own — shows that broad movements anchored in citizen consciousness are harder to extinguish than formal party entities tied to courts, constitutions, and symbols vulnerable to manipulation.
Finally, voters are not naïve. They will judge consistency of vision, clarity of values, and the ability to mobilise and protect the people’s will — not slogans about form versus structure.
Time will indeed tell. But cynicism should not replace analysis, and caution should not be confused with inevitability.
Tungwarara’s daughter spends 18K on a shopping spree with her friends in South Africa while RTD Brigadier General Ngarava dies at Chinhoyi General hospital where he was admitted after failing to pay private hospital fees.What legacy are these soldiers protecting?
ED must go now!
Former Zimbabwean foreign minister Walter Mzembi was arrested on 14 June 2025 after he returned to Zimbabwe from years in exile.
He has been in jail since that arrest. He has now spent about 220 days in prison, more than seven months. Mnangagwa does not forget, neither does he forgive.