Inside Mutumwa Mawere’s application for ED removal

Mutumwa Mawere has filed papers at the Constitutional Court, seeking to block incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa from contesting in the August 23 polls.

In his application for an interim interdict and restraining order filed on July 5, Mawere said Mnangagwa must be "interdicted and restrained from participating in the 2023 elections."

Mawere is arguing that the Act precluded the concurrent application of the provisions of the Companies Act in relation to the affairs of a company whose control and management was divested and deprived due to the Reconstruction Act.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has applied to have Mutumwa declared a vexatious litigant for his continued attempts to have the courts in that country interfere in the SMM issue.

In the application, the SA president’s lawyer says that Mawere wants to use the Office of the President of the Republic of South Africa, to attack the Zimbabwean court judgment and the Reconstruction Order.

“Mawere was given an opportunity, through the Zimbabwean judiciary system, to challenge the Reconstruction order, and he failed,” reads the application.

Mawere got Shabanie Mashava Mines Holdings under a deal with the Robert Mugabe administration in which he acquired the giant asbestos mining company for one dollar. Later on Mugabe would publicly call out Mawere for disloyalty.

Once the world’s sixth largest asbestos miner, employing over 4000 workers, SMM, under Mawere slid into debt to the state and insolvency. SMM was seized by government in 2004 through the Reconstruction of State-Indebted Insolvent Companies Act.

State appointed administrator Afaras Gwaradzimba of AMG Global Chartered Accountants failed to resuscitate SMM

In 2020 Gawaradzimba said he had disposed of some of SMM’s US$450 million assets to fund operation revival.

Mawere referred to Air Zimbabwe (AirZim) and Hwange Colliery Company Limited, as cases where violations of the law had taken place while the firms were under reconstruction.

"Court to declare that Mnangagwa's conduct in relation to the affairs of Air Zimbabwe Private Limited and Hwange Colliery Company through his direct and personal actions including appointing Chinamasa as chairman of Air Zimbabwe under reconstruction, which conduct was ultra vires the Reconstruction of State-indebted Insolvent Companies Act,” said Mawere in his application

Chinamasa was the minister of finance between 2013 and 2017.

Also cited as respondents alongside Mnangagwa are SMM, THZ Holdings Limited, Africa Resources Limited, Tap Building Products Limited and Tichaona Mupasiri.

Tichaona Mupasiri has been a court regular. He joined Sybeth Musengezi in his bid to have ED’s ascendancy to Zanu PF leadership declared unconstitutional. He filed a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) application alleging President Emmerson Mnangagwa has captured the Judiciary after his application to be joined in the Shabani and Mashava Mines court proceedings were dismissed before the summons were served on the President.

Mupasiri in 2021 filed a ConCourt application seeking to be joined in the court proceedings citing Mutumwa Mawere, SMM Holdings Limited, Africa Resources, TAP Building Products and Mnangagwa as respondents.