Chivayo was a corrupt tenderpreneur, not bona fide businessman – Mahere

Lawyer Fadzayi Mahere says the late Wicknell Chivayo was not a bona fide businessman but a corrupt tenderpreneur who believed his conduct was normal.

Mahere’s scathing assessment came in a series of posts on social media following Chivayo’s death on Wednesday in a helicopter crash at Kudenga Farm, near Marondera, that also claimed the lives of his wife Lucy, two pilots and a security aide.

The two had a long-running feud on X, with exchanges often degenerating into personal attacks. In fact, on Wednesday morning, just hours before the crash, Chivayo had, apparently unprovoked, insulted Mahere, calling her “tsikombi” – a Shona term for a woman who has passed the socially expected age of marriage and carries the cultural connotation of being left behind.

“I mean no disrespect to anyone asi chero TSIKOMBI iya ingaitewo kana 50 mu bank here iya? HASHA dzese dziya INHAMO ‘we need new leaders’ EVERYDAY isu tachinja slogan yave VISION 2040 taneta neku vhundutsirwa ne mapfumo emashanga isu ZVAKWANA,” wrote Chivayo on Wednesday morning.

In her posts, Mahere said the public narrative that Chivayo was a successful entrepreneur was false.

“People are spreading a false narrative that Wicknell was a bona fide businessman. He was not. He was a corrupt tenderpreneur and he believed that his conduct was normal,” she wrote.

She pointed to Chivayo’s appearance before a parliamentary portfolio committee, where he admitted that his company, Intratek, is a briefcase entity that takes advantage of the tender process to front international companies for profit.

“This is why Wicknell’s Intratek doesn’t produce or sell anything. It has no visible employees. They never exhibit at trade shows and there’s no discernible footprint of his commercial activity. This is why he could not build the Gwanda solar farm that he was paid millions by Government to deliver,” Mahere wrote.

“They simply get tenders from Government then pawn off those tenders to foreign companies that do the work. Wicknell then puts a multi-million dollar mark-up, gets paid huge amounts from the public purse and that’s how he got ‘rich’.”

She said these were public funds that should have been invested in hospitals, schools and infrastructure, but were instead wasted on private jets, Rolls-Royces and, more recently, “gifts” to silence influential artists, church leaders and other voices with a following.

“So please don’t be surprised that the public are so opposed to what he represents,” she said.

Mahere said Chivayo secured the multi-million-dollar Gwanda Solar Project tender with zero qualifications and zero experience – not an allegation, she said, but a matter of public record from his own admissions before Parliament.

“His stock in trade was to befriend top politicians and presidents so that he could get Government tenders, inflate the prices by the tens of millions and then grease the relevant palms. This would mean he was paid millions more in taxpayer funds than was due to him. He was an unnecessary middleman,” she said.

“The evidence of his selfies with and sycophantic of said political elites are all there online for everyone to see.”

Mahere also turned her attention to the handling of the crash itself, citing an account from an employee at Kudenga Farm who said when they arrived at the scene, the bodies were still burning and there were no fire brigade or emergency services personnel in sight.

“They had to get water in a truck from the farm to put out the fire so that the bodies would not burn beyond recognition. How come there was no Marondera Fire Brigade to attend to this emergency? Why did ambulances have to come from Harare?” she asked.

“The uncomfortable truth is that the victims of the crash were failed in every way by a broken, I dare say non-existent, emergency services system.”

She said the failure exposed the cost of looting money meant for public services.

“When will political elites learn that you simply cannot ‘VIP’ your way out of a broken state system that loots money meant to be invested in public services? When will places outside Harare like Kariba and Marondera get their own services working?”

“When the masses raise these concerns, it’s not out of spite or to attack you. Rather, if you listened instead of declaring war or chanting 2040 as a slur, you may actually save your own life.”

Mahere further questioned the dignity and forensic handling of the remains after images circulated of body parts being placed in rubbish bins.

“Is this a dignified, let alone forensically sound or ethical, way to treat persons who have passed away? Why did the bodies spend the night in the bush? Why was there no attempt to ensure that they were timeously collected to avoid weather damage, exposure to animals or other adverse effects?” she wrote.

“Instead of buying an endless stream of luxury cars and private jets, why is the Government not investing in our emergency services? This is despicable.”