JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Zimbabwe’s finance ministry paid over R1.1 billion to a South African company awarded contracts to supply election materials, and over R800 million of that money immediately found its way into the bank accounts of companies owned by Wicknell Chivayo, the controversial businessman accused of securing government contracts by bribing top officials.
The bombshell revelations are contained in an analysis of Ren-Form CC’s bank accounts performed by South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) between April 5, 2023, and May 16, 2024.
The FIC tendered its findings to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Financial Intelligence Unit, and also the South African Revenue Services and South African Police Service “for urgent attention and commencement of investigation,” according to documents seen by ZimLive.
Ren-Form CC, a commercial printing company headquartered in Johannesburg, was handpicked to supply materials to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) for the August 23, 2023, general elections without going to tender.
Its contract would have gone unnoticed until a nasty fallout between Chivayo and his business partners Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu over how to share their “commission”, having used their political contacts to secure the deal for the company.
Leaked audio recordings and WhatsApp messages between the three men revealed that Chivayo had allegedly paid several high ranking government officials from proceeds of the deal. Chivayo has denied that it was his voice on the clips and apologised to Mnangagwa, former spy boss Isaac Moyo, chief cabinet secretary Martin Rushwaya and ZEC chair Justice Priscilla Chigumba for creating the “adverse impression” that their institutions “are involved in corruption or participate in illicit transactions”.
It also emerged that Ren-Form had wildly inflated prices of goods to be supplied – from ballot papers, biometric registration kits, central server, non-flushing toilets, indelible ink to tents. The difference between Ren Form’s standard charge for a product, and the inflated price in the final invoice submitted to Zimbabwe’s treasury, was to be paid to Chivayo and his partners as “commission.”
For instance, Ren-Form invoiced the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission R23 million for a central server that costs R90,000 online, and 2,000 non-flushing toilets priced at R68,700 each, which retail for about R10,000 per unit.
Ren-Form also provided ZEC with biometric voter registration (BVR) kits. In the original quote, Ren-Form quoted US$5,000 per kit. Yet the BVR kits tripled in price to nearly US$16,000 by the time of the final invoice just a few weeks later.
Similar BVR kits cost US$3,600 per unit when bought by the United Nations Development Programme for the 2021 elections in Honduras.
Chivayo accused Mpofu and Chimombe of being behind the leak, and the duo was subsequently arrested on unrelated corruption charges and denied bail.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission initially said it would investigate the election contracts for possible corruption, but the probe appears to have stalled.
According to the FIC, Zimbabwe’s finance ministry paid a total of R1,167,364,300.51 (US$61,129,440) to Ren-Form’s two bank accounts held with Standard Bank in South Africa.
The finance ministry also paid R156 million directly to an account in the name of Edenbreeze, a company owned by Chivayo. The payment was for “architectural, engineering and other technical services.”
The FIC report says Ren-Form’s bank accounts were repeatedly flagged for suspicious transactions “due to rapid movement of funds to various parties” once payment was received from Zimbabwe’s treasury.
“Ren-Form received over R1 billion from the Zimbabwe ministry of finance and economic development. More than R800 million was transferred to the business bank accounts of Wicknell Chivayo, mainly Intratrek Holdings and Dolintel Trading Enterprise,” the FIC said in the confidential report dated October 30, 2024.
Once the money landed in accounts of the two companies, Chivayo made “significant payments” to his personal and other business accounts. From one personal account, he paid in excess of R36 million “seemingly towards car purchases.”
Some of the companies paid large sums by Intratrek are listed as Agile Venture Capital, Makopah Holdings, Platinum Group, WMC Trading, Opened 4 All Trading & Projects and Asibambeki Platinum Group which received a transfer of a whopping R351 million. Asibambeki has one Emmanuel Musanyenda listed as the sole director.
Chivayo also made significant payments to a law firm, Strauss Scher Inc (R4 million), car dealer Daytona (R5.4 million), travel agent Flight Centre South Africa (R1.6 million), NN Truck and Trailer (R5.6 million) and Zimbabwean make-up brand Christian by Hadassah (R1 million). A company called Kumba Group received R28.8 million while Indo Logistics was paid R9.4 million.
The FIC says while making these payments, Chivayo’s accounts were repeatedly flagged over the “round amounts” being transacted, “luxury purchases” and “transaction activity not in line with the profiling information of the account holder.”
Chivayo, who is regularly seen in the company of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, denies wrongdoing. Ren-Form previously denied corruption in the contracts, including inflating prices to pay bribes.
But the company now faces uncomfortable questions over how – of the R1.1 billion it received from Zimbabwe’s treasury – it only retained about R300 million, which is likely how much its services really cost, before price inflation to generate “commission” for Chivayo.
ZimLive has reached out to Zimbabwe’s treasury and Ren-Form CC for comment.
Read part of the Financial Intelligence Centre’s report on Ren-Form CC and Wicknell Chivayo: CLICK HERE
