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Takunda Maodza Harare Bureau
Zanu-PF Mashonaland West chair and Hurungwe West legislator Cde Temba Mliswa yesterday said businessman Conrad “Billy” Rautenbach was Zimbabwe’s biggest land owner and even claimed to own the government.
He also said the ruling party’s secretary for administration and Minister of State in the Office of the President, Cde Didymus Mutasa, facilitated an out of court settlement for him in a plus $165 million dispute with Rautenbach.
The dispute stemmed from money Cde Mliswa said he was owed for facilitating Rautenbach’s interests in Hwange Colliery, Unki Platinum Mine and the Chisumbanje ethanol project.
Cde Mliswa said some of these deals guaranteed him shareholding in the projects.
On Sunday Cde Mutasa denied playing any role in the Mliswa-Rautenbach wrangle.
At a Press conference in Harare yesterday, Cde Mliswa also implicated Arda board chair and former Zanu-PF Manicaland provincial chairperson Cde Basil Nyabadza – and other unnamed politicians – in the deals.
He claimed Rautenbach bought Cde Nyabadza a house in Mutare and gave “brown envelopes” to several politicians whose names he said he would soon reveal to oil his deals.
Cde Nyabadza is understood to be contemplating legal action against Cde Mliswa over the allegation.
Cde Mliswa said his multi-million dollar deals with Rautenbach were entirely verbal and there was no paper work to confirm them.
The politician demanded at least $165 million from Rautenbach as facilitation fees and shareholding in the three projects. Cde Mliswa alleged that Rautenbach got platinum claims worth over $4 billion for free from government at Unki and fraudulently sold them for $1 billion, none of which benefited the country.
He said he was owed 10 percent of that sum, translating to $100 million, for his verbally-agreed shareholding in the Unki platinum concession.
On Hwange, Cde Mliswa said he was to be paid $10 per tonne of coal and $5 for every tonne of coke supplied to Hwange Thermal Power Station.
Cde Mliswa yesterday also said Rautenbach was the biggest land owner in Zimbabwe with over 2, 000 square kilometres in Nuanetsi, 30, 000ha in Chisumbanje, and 30 percent of Anglo-American platinum concessions.
“Billy claims to own the entire government. No wonder the ministers are dilly-dallying at the end of the day (in bringing him to book) . . . All these transactions happened in front of people. People of repute, and when I am sitting with national leaders and we agree, I consider the deal signed and sealed.
“But yes, we have a problem with politicians who are hungry who then circumvent you so that they can gross too,” Cde Mliswa said.
“I do not know whether it is normal business practice but in Zimbabwe we would call it normal business practice, where you take somebody to a leader but the next thing that leader is circumventing you and is dealing with that.
“So, there was an exchange of many brown envelopes and time will come when we shall name who received the envelopes and who did not.”
Cde Mliswa insisted that his business transactions with Rautenbach were above board and explained the role Cde Mutasa played in the whole saga.
“It is a normal business practice to demand a share of the cake if you are involved. There is nothing amiss about that and since 2011 we then withdrew the transactions on the basis that the Minister of Presidential Affairs Honourable Cde Mutasa came to me and said Billy had approached him for us to settle this out of court.
“The onus is on you (journalists) to go and ask the Honourable Minister ‘did Billy ask you to settle this out of court?’ Because he is an Honourable MP and he so happens to be my uncle, I trusted my uncle. I decided that the matter be settled out of court because he had gone and asked him to do that.
“Basil Nyabadza was there. I am the one who took Billy to Arda. Basil Nyabadza never knew Billy. Why was I in a flight from Harare to Arda? Certainly I was not a flight attendant. It is a helicopter, a helicopter does not need a flight attendant. So what was I doing?
“It would be good for him (Billy) to answer what I was doing in that flight,” he said.
“I told you the role that Mutasa played in us wanting to go to Chisumbanje. He is a leader in Manicaland. It is no secret. Munosvika kumusha kwababa moti tichada kupinda ne investment iyi.
“I had applied for this (Chisumbanje). I did not have money. I then incorporated Billy. Billy was interested in Arda Sisi. I told him Arda Sisi is too small why don’t you go to Chisumbanje?
“So the relationship with Mutasa is him being a senior government leader and the leader of Manicaland.”
Cde Mliswa said as a director in the companies he was entitled to allowances.
“I do not come cheap. I am not one of those who get satisfied about being given a brown envelope and go. I want a stake in the business, especially if it is a lucrative business,” he said.
Cde Mliswa also explained the role Zanu-PF Politburo member and former Hwange chairman Cde Tendai Savanhu played in the deals.
“I approached government and Honourable Savanhu was the chairman of Hwange. We wanted to do business with Hwange. What was wrong with approaching a chairman of a company?
“It was then left to the CEO Fred Moyo to deal with it. Again, that transaction did not come out the way it was supposed to come out,” he alleged.
Cde Mliswa said Rautenbach got a Hwange coal claim after pledging to government to improve power generation by supplying coking coal.
However, Cde Mliswa said, Rautenbach exported the coal even as Zimbabwe battled electricity shortages.
He further accused Rautenbach of exporting four million litres of ethanol from Chisumbanje, as reported by our Harare Bureau yesterday.
This, he said, caused panic because of the mandatory blending policy, forcing the government to turn to Triangle for ethanol supplies.
On Cde Nyabadza, Cde Mliswa said: “Basil Nyabadza benefited with a house in Mutare. You can call him and ask where he got the house from. His companies are not doing well. Billy Rautenbach bought a house for him, no wonder he has become a spokesperson for Billy when you talk about Green Fuel.
“Tell him that the true shareholder in this business says ‘Billy bought you a house. Can you show the world where you got the money from?’”
He accused Cde Nyabadza, whom he constantly referred to as “Uncle Tom”, of fronting white interests in Chisumbanje and the Save Conservancy.
Cde Nyabadza yesterday denied the allegations and indicated he would report Cde Mliswa to the police.
Cde Mliswa dismissed our Harare Bureau’s detailed reports on the saga saying they were a reflection of factional fights in Zanu-PF, and that reporters had been paid to scandalise him.
He then accused Media, Information and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo of abusing the State media to settle political scores.
“There are factions in the party. I am sure the Minister of Information belongs to another faction so he will also attack another faction. I say this boldly without fear,” Cde Mliswa said.
He associated Prof Moyo with party big wig Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“It is not a secret that Minister Moyo was once associated with the Mnangagwa faction,” he said.
He did not explain why, as a responsible legislator, he had not reported Rautenbach to the police but said he would raise the matter in Parliament today.
Online Reporter