Zinara, NetOne boards dissolved

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THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA)’s board has been dissolved for failing to “uphold good corporate governance”, deputy Transport minister Fortune Chasi says.
This also comes as Information Communication and Technology Minister Kazembe Kazembe equally axed the NetOne board. Wilfred Ramwi’s ZINARA tribunal had been under the spotlight for a number of reasons, including its spirited efforts to push out suspended chief executive Nancy Masiyiwa-Chamisa, who had been fighting corruption.
“The ZINARA board has been dissolved with immediate effect,” Chasi told The Financial Gazette.
“Reasons have been provided and these include serious corporate governance shortcomings, failure to take decisive action in dealing with matters arising from (a) forensic audit report,” he said.
The sacking of Ramwi’s intransigent council also comes as technical director and former acting chief executive Moses Juma has been jailed for two years.
With committee chairperson Moses Chinhengo having had to recuse himself from the October 3 proceedings over allegations that he was related to ZINARA financial director Simon Taranhike’s wife, Chasi told the Daily News recently that “they were looking at ways of enhancing transparency at the key institution before taking decisive action at the key institution”.
Both Masiyiwa-Chamisa’s lawyer, advocate Sylvester Hashiti, and the retired judge have confirmed the development, with the former revealing that the entire committee had agreed to step aside on the basis or concerns that they probably shared the same view on the embattled CE’s fate.
“It turned out that one of the panelists was related to the finance director (Taranhike) and we then made an application for the council to be reconstituted,” he said, adding procedure dictates that ZINARA must notify his client of a new hearing date.
On his part, Chinhengo said he had recused himself from Masiyiwa-Chamisa’s disciplinary process in the interest or spirit of fairness.
“If you discover that there’s a perception by litigants that you might be biased, the best way is to recuse yourself and I did just that,” he told The Financial Gazette yesterday.
While manoeuvres to oust Masiyiwa-Chamisa began mid-last year, the engineer was eventually suspended on June 21 this year for alleged incompetence, abuse of authority and undermining then minister Joram Gumbo by taking disciplinary measures against Taranhike, and another executive.
As the drama continued last week, the ex-University of Zimbabwe lecturer and army officer was even tussling with Ramwi’s board to access key documents, including a Grant Thornton and Camelsa audit report, which could help her defence.
It also turns out that Masiyiwa-Chamisa is facing bizarre charges, including that she berated co-executives in public, and her alleged incompetence flies in the face of a “good performance appraisal” by ZINARA’s board last year.
Apart from the weird appointment of corporate secretary Mathlene Mujokoro as acting CE, Masiyiwa-Chamisa’s tribulations have manifested themselves in bizarre twists including censure for trying to protect her employer’s interests in July last year and attempts to enforce the forensic audit, which has proven to the board’s waterloo.
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