adminHarare Bureau
DENNIS Magaya, PowerTel’s chief technology strategy expert, is facing the axe from the job after a minister said he was “not bringing any value” to the struggling Zesa Holdings subsidiary.
Energy and Power Development Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire said the fate of Zesa Holdings chief executive officer Engineer Josh Chifamba, whose contract was extended by six months, would be left to the new board set to be appointed soon.
The irregular appointment of Dr Magaya and six other people, in defiance of a State Procurement Board (SPB) resolution, saw the power utility losing over $2 million for the past two years in salaries and allowances to the expert and his team.
Sources close to the goings on at Zesa Holdings also revealed that Eng Chifamba was unlikely to survive the chop as he stood accused of conniving with the PowerTel board to rope in Dr Magaya in defiance of the SPB directive.
Minister Mavhaire, yesterday said Dr Magaya’s “honeymoon” with the parastatal was over.
“We’re firing him and his people. We’re following the correct procedures to deal with him and we’re almost done with the issue. In a day or two we will have finalised the matter,” Minister Mavhaire told our Harare Bureau.
“In this case, there are no replacements because these people were of no value to the parastatal. They had their honeymoon, taking money from the institution, but this has come to an end.”
Minister Mavhaire accused Eng Chifamba and the PowerTel board of conniving to engage Dr Magaya and his team irregularly.
After being engaged to develop PowerTel’s business strategy between January and September 2012, Dr Magaya produced a strategy document, but the PowerTel board, including Eng Chifamba, applied for condonation to go straight for the implementation without going to tender.
The SPB turned them down and asked them to go to tender. PowerTel then went to tender with Dr Magaya’s RubieM Technologies as one of the applicants.
The SPB told them that RubieM could not be part of the tender after which the PowerTel chairman Francis Chirimuuta and Eng Chifamba unprocedurally transformed the tender into an employment contract.
Said Minister Mavhaire: “The bottom line is once the SPB says no to a tender then it ends there. But, in connivance, the chief executive (Eng Chifamba) and the board decided to say they could not employ someone to implement a strategy done by Dr Magaya.
“They then employed him as a consultant to circumvent the SPB but the conditions were not for consultancy but for a full time worker. Dr Magaya, realising that, went and took five more people and they started getting special salaries.”
Dr Magaya’s contract started with a salary of $14,000, increased to $26,000 and a bonus of $13,140 every month translating to $469,700 in 2012.
The figure rose to $525,400 last year and this year he was supposed to receive $532,000.
His colleagues, who include engineers Shadreck Chuma, Farai Mudyanyama, Maxwel Chiwara and lawyer Shingirayi Gova, got $9,000 each monthly.
Minister Mavhaire said Dr Magaya “strategised” to cheat Zesa Holdings’ subsidiary.
“His strategy failed as they’ve not made any change to the subsidiary. Had they been given a few months, they would have brought down PowerTel to its knees because they were the only ones getting paid while others could go for time without salaries,” he said.
“What’s sad is that Dr Magaya, Eng Chifamba and the board knew they were breaking the law. The strategy he implemented failed but because the three parties had connived, it was difficult for them to fire him.”
On Eng Chifamba’s contract, Minister Mavhaire said: “The appointment of the chief executive is the responsibility of the board but the board’s term expired before the expiry of Eng Chifamba’s contract.
“We extended his contract by six months but the new board will dismiss him or reengage him though we feel he has served his time.”
Meanwhile, Minister Mavhaire said Zesa managers who had been dismissed or transferred over flimsy allegations during the time of Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma were being reinstated.
He said the government had realised the workers had been victimised and transferred without being tried, while others were unilaterally fired.
He said the sad thing was that those fired were replaced by some engineers that had relocated to neighbouring countries.
“There’re no cases against them and procedure was not followed,” he said.
“The former Minister (Mangoma) found the system intact and now was putting his own people. We’re now reversing that and putting people where they should be.”
Zesa Enterprises managing director Tererai Mutasa and PowerTel managing director Samuel Maminimini, Zimbabwe Power Company’s Noah Gwariro are some of the people that had been reinstated.
Dr Magaya refused to comment yesterday.
Two weeks ago, Dr Magaya was briefly appointed as the new board chairman for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, but the appointment was withdrawn within 24 hours by Information and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo after details of the PowerTel tender abuse emerged.
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