HARARE – ZESA executive chairman Sydney Gata survived an apparent attempt on his life when his vehicle was shot at multiple times in the early hours of Saturday.
The 74-year-old had just returned home aboard a Kenyan Airways flight and was being driven away from the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport at around 2AM when the gunmen struck, law enforcement sources told ZimLive.
A vehicle described only as a black twin cab without number plates pulled up alongside the silver-grey Mercedes carrying Gata and several gunshots were fired from the suspect vehicle.
“When the Mercedes was examined, it had at least five bullet holes,” the security source said, adding that none of the shots hit Gata or his driver, who accelerated away from the twin cab.
Investigators believe the attack was an assassination attempt and not a robbery.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said investigators were still on the ground and he would have more information later Saturday.
As executive chairman of ZESA, Gata wields huge influence over multi-million-dollar infrastructure tenders and supply contracts at the power utility.
He was suspended in August and then reinstated in September following a bruising boardroom battle with then energy minister Fortune Chasi, who was eventually sacked by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
In a July 30 letter to Chasi, Gata said he was “deeply involved in uprooting disturbing serious levels of corruption in the company.”
Several ZESA executives have been sacked, arrested for corruption or redeployed in recent months.
