Online Reporter
Herald Reporter
SOUTH Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre and the country’s specialised police unit, the Hawks, have said Zimbabwean businessman Mr Wicknell Chivayo is not under investigation for alleged fraud relating to the procurement of Zimbabwe’s 2023 harmonised election material.
This follows claims on social and online media reports that the Harare entrepreneur is under investigation by South African authorities for money laundering relating to the procurement of R800 million worth of election materials.
The unsubstantiated reports alleged Ren-Form, a Johannesburg printing company, was contracted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to supply election material for the 2023 harmonised elections and received over R1,1 billion from Treasury, with more than R800 million allegedly going into bank accounts linked to Mr Chivayo
The FIC has said that it did not conduct investigations, but rather provided financial intelligence to law enforcement and other competent authorities for use in investigations and applications for asset forfeiture.
“The FIC Act prevents FIC from disclosing whether or not it has received regulatory reports and whether or not it has produced financial intelligence on any matter or individual,” the organisation said.
Hawks spokesman Colonel Katlego Mogale said: “The DPCI (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) has no such case in our system”.
The Hawks are the branch of the South African Police Service that investigates organised crime, economic crime, corruption and other serious crimes.
The unfounded claims also came after the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe, in a letter to Mr Chivayo’s attorneys, dated December 2, 2025, confirmed that there are no pending criminal cases against him and his company.
A South African media outlet that published a damning report about Mr Chivayo regarding the money-laundering claims and the alleged R800 million election-material procurement fraud, News24, has since been forced to retract its stories and offer an apology.
The story was titled; “Zimbabwean businessman in R800 million Hawks probe shows off flashy R160 million Atlantic Seaboard Mansion”.
Mr Chivayo recently bought a luxury cliff-top mansion in Clifton, Cape Town, for R160 million (about US$9,5 million).
News24 had also claimed in an earlier report that South Africa’s FIC was investigating Mr Chivayo over alleged money laundering involving R800 million.
This followed social media buzz when Mr Chivayo appeared in public in the company of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to Zimbabwe on a working visit and met President Mnangagwa at his Precabe Farm in Kwekwe in May.
News24 was, however, forced to retract its story and apologise “for the error” after Mr Chivayo’s legal team, led by the prominent legal practitioner Advocate Dali Mpofu, assisted by top lawyer Mr Eric Mabuza, demanded a retraction of the online articles falsely linking Mr Chivayo to fraud in Zimbabwe election material procurement.
The lawyers also said media reports erroneously claimed that a South African court had frozen his assets pending finalisation of Mr Chivayo’s divorce case proceedings with his estranged wife, Ms Sonja Madzikanda.
“The false and malicious allegations have been and continue to be injurious and detrimental to Mr Chivayo’s good name and reputation,” said his legal team through Mabuza Attorneys in a letter to the publication.
The lawyers demanded that the articles be taken down from digital platforms and that the publication issue an apology.
“Failing compliance with the items raised in the preceding paragraph, Mr Chivayo reserves the right to exercise all legal remedies available to him in law to prevent the ongoing irreparable harm caused to his reputation.”
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission said in December last year it had found no evidence linking businessman Mr Chivayo to any fraudulent conduct regarding the 2023 harmonised elections material procurement by ZEC, following months of probing the matter.
ZACC chairperson Mr Michael Reza said the commission had found no evidence linking ZEC, Mr Chivayo, or the South African company to the alleged procurement fraud, nor did any contract exist between the electoral body and any of the mentioned parties.
Contacted for comment, Mr Chivayo’s lawyers said they welcomed the confirmation by the South African Police Service that there was no case against the Harare businessman regarding the alleged R800 million Zimbabwe election material procurement fraud.
“We welcome the confirmation by the South African Police Service, through the Hawks, that our client is not under any investigation and that there is no such case in their system relating to the alleged R800 million fraud reportedly connected to the procurement of Zimbabwe’s 2023 harmonised election materials through Ren-Form.
“This pronouncement is important because our client has, for some time, been accused in the public domain of matters which he has consistently denied and which, as now confirmed, were not even the subject of any formal investigation by the South African authorities.
“Under the South African Constitution, as indeed under the Constitution of Zimbabwe and many other constitutional democracies, every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law.
“Unfortunately, in the court of public opinion, our client had already been vilified and adjudged as guilty of an offence he never committed and, in fact, of an offence which was not even under investigation.
“It is also important to place on record that no court within the Republic of South Africa has pronounced any criminal conviction against our client,” said the lawyers.
“Various statements attributed to certain political organisations and certain politicians fell substantially short of the accuracy of the facts.
“These statements, which were broadly circulated predominantly on social media platforms, were nothing more than conjecture and rhetoric, without any legal basis. The confirmation by the Hawks, therefore, settles that issue in very clear terms,” the lawyers said.
Mr Chivayo’s legal team welcomed the pronouncement by the Hawks as a progressive and important development.
“It settles the aspersions that had been unlawfully and unfairly cast over our client. It corrects the false impression that our client was under any criminal investigation in South Africa. That impression is contrary to our knowledge of our client and contrary to the manner in which he has conducted his business dealings.
“We have also taken note of the subsequent correction published by News24, a prominent and widely followed South African publication, after it had earlier carried misleading reporting concerning our client. “The publication has since recorded an editor’s note acknowledging that it had erroneously reported that Mr Chivayo was currently under investigation by the FIC and the Hawks in connection with money laundering, and it expressly apologised for the error.
“This correction followed steps taken on our client’s instructions to confront the inaccurate reporting, which was confirmed through the Hawks spokesperson, Col. Katlego Mogale, that the DPCI did not have our client’s alleged case in their system for investigation purposes.
“It further demonstrates the extent to which misleading information, once circulated on social media and in certain media spaces, can create an entirely false public impression with serious reputational consequences.
“While we are fairly satisfied with the confirmation by the Hawks and retraction by News24, we shall, in consultation with our client, assess the broader legal implications of these developments, including the extent of reputational harm and any other prejudice he may have suffered.
“Our client reserves all his rights in respect of any persons or entities who may have unlawfully represented, as fact, that he was under investigation when that was not the case at all.”
Meanwhile, Mr Chivayo’s lawyers said, as his legal advisors in various transactions in South Africa, including investments and other matters, it was necessary to correct the other misconception deliberately created in the public domain.
“The only matter which some persons have erroneously sought to link to these allegations is the civil matrimonial dispute involving our client and his estranged wife. That matter is not a criminal matter. It does not constitute or involve any commission or allegation of fraud.
“For the avoidance of doubt, our client’s assets were never frozen in the manner that social media suggested. In fact, the properties which our client’s estranged wife sought to have preserved or restrained through a non-dissipation order (such as the private jet ZAS-ACT) are assets that are not owned by our client.
“These assets are owned by companies in which our client is a shareholder or director, e.g the private jet which is registered in the name of and owned by Intratrek Holdings (Pty) Ltd.
“The law is very clear that a company is a separate and independent juristic person from its directors and shareholders. The corporate veil cannot simply be wished away in an attempt to import allegations or contestations arising from divorce proceedings into the affairs of a company.
Accordingly, the lawyers said a director’s wife or former wife cannot, merely by reason of matrimonial proceedings, lay claim to assets which are owned by a company in its own right and for its own operational or business purposes.
“It is also necessary to explain the nature of the court order that was obtained earlier this year by our client’s estranged wife. What was granted by the High Court in Pretoria was a Rule Nisi, which is merely an interim order.
“It’s not final in nature. In simple terms, this order simply calls upon the other party to “show cause” why a final order should not be confirmed. In other words, it allows the affected party to come before the court and explain why the interim order should not be made final.
“That Rule Nisi was granted pursuant to an ex parte application. An ex parte application is an application brought by one party in the absence of the other party and without the other party being heard at that initial stage.
“The legal effect is that the affected party must later be allowed to respond and place the full facts before the court. That is why a rule nisi is inherently provisional and not conclusive of the merits of the dispute. The matter was subsequently heard and the High Court reserved its judgment.
“We do not intend to ventilate the full merits of the matter in the media since the matter is sub judice. However, we take the view that our client enjoys good prospects of success,” the lawyers said.
Mr Chivayo’s lawyers also pointed out that the divorce proceedings which had been instituted in the High Court of Zimbabwe had now effectively been brought to finality through a consent order entered into between the parties.
“In terms of that consent order, our client paid his estranged wife the sum of US$5 million towards the upkeep of his minor children and in full and final settlement of the divorce claim.
“That development is legally significant because the South African proceedings were, in all material respects, sought pending the outcome of the Zimbabwean divorce proceedings.
“Now that the matrimonial dispute in Zimbabwe has been resolved, the conditional basis upon which the Rule Nisi was pursued has, in our respectful view, materially fallen away,” Chivayo’s lawyers added.
Put otherwise, the lawyers said, where an interim preservation order is sought pending the determination of a principal matrimonial dispute and that principal dispute has since been resolved by consent between the parties, the legal foundation for the interim relief falls away.
“We therefore take the view that the South African proceedings no longer retain the same legal footing which may have been asserted at the time the ex parte application was launched.
“While the South African court remains seized with the matter and we do not wish to pre-empt its determination, we are firmly of the view that the resolution of the Zimbabwean divorce proceedings substantially weakens, if not extinguishes, the basis upon which the Rule Nisi was sought.”
