Chivayo, business partner clash

BUSINESSMAN Mr Wicknell Chivayo is embroiled in boardroom squabbles with his business partner Mr Yusuf Ahmid whom he accuses of plotting to elbow him out of Intratrek Zimbabwe Private Limited.

Mr Chivayo - who is the founder and managing director of Intratrek - is battling to protect his interests in the firm, arguing that they own 50 percent shareholding apiece.

He claims that a verbal agreement they entered into awarded them equal shareholding.
Intratrek was awarded a tender worth $5 million to set up a 100MW solar project in Gwanda under controversial circumstances and it has been heavily criticised over its failure to implement the project in time despite receiving payment from the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) without a guarantee.

Problems arose when Mr Ahmid's lawyers sought to be provided with documents related to the Gwanda tender, both from ZESA Holdings and Mr Chivayo.

Mr Ahmid's lawyers reportedly also held a meeting with ZESA Holdings, a development Mr Chivayo felt was part of his partner's strategy to topple him.

Harare lawyer Mr Wilson Manase of Manase & Manase Legal Practitioners has written to ZESA Holdings chief executive officer Engineer Josh Chifamba warning him against entertaining Mr Ahmid and his lawyers in discussions regarding the Gwanda project.

Mr Manase, on behalf of Mr Chivayo, also wrote to Mr Ahmid's lawyers Bruce Tokwe Commercial Law Chambers, accusing them of roping in ZESA Holdings in their plot for a boardroom coup.

"Your demand (for documents) has been inopportunely made at a time when both your clients and yourself jointly and severally engaged certain officials from ZESA Holdings on or around 25 January 2018 on an inimical attempt to illegally topple our client from his rightful position as a 50 percent shareholder in Intratrek Zimbabwe and its managing director," he said.

"The agenda and subsequent deliberations at the aforesaid meeting clearly demonstrate an insatiable appetite on the part of your clients and indeed any party associated with them, to unjustly benefit from the hard work and dedication which our client invested in the operations of Intratrek Zimbabwe, culminating in the winning and signing of the Gwanda Solar 100MW EPC Contract with the Zimbabwe Power Company on October 23 2015."

Mr Manase added, "It is highly abhorrent on the part of your clients and correspondingly unethical on any person to be part of such an unscrupulous skirmish whose intention is to cuckold our client and swindle his shareholding in Intratrek Zimbabwe".

The verbal agreement between the parties, Mr Manase said, awarded them 50 percent shareholding apiece in Intratrek Zimbabwe.

Mr Manase stated in the letter that Mr Ahmid abandoned Intratrek for three years, only to resurface when the ZESA tender had been won.

"Their conduct is only explained by sheer greed and self-absorbed interests to acquire undeserving gains from the Gwanda Solar 100MW project," he said. "It is clear that your clients have conveniently peddled falsehoods in order to unjustly benefit from our client's exceptional dedication to ensuring that the project is a success."

In a letter to Eng Chifamba, Mr Manase urged ZESA to stop meddling in the affairs of Intratrek.
"This unwarranted and illegal meddling is without doubt, highly improper, bordering on a scandalous connivance between public officials and a cabal of ill-intentioned schemers purporting to represent Intratrek Zimbabwe, while harbouring hostile interests in our client's business in general and the Gwanda Solar project, in particular," he said.

In terms of the contract between ZPC and Intratrek, any official communication should strictly be done between the two companies' managing directors only.